Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Water Supplies (Fluoridation)

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Health what proposals he has for extending the fluoridation of water supplies where these are deficient in fluorine content.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health what is his present policy with regard to extending the fluoridation of water supplies.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): Since the benefits and safety of the fluoridation of water supplies were established beyond doubt, my policy has been to urge local health authorities to arrange for its introduction and to assist them in implementing their proposals. The need for further action is constantly under review.

Dr. Kerr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Answer which he gave to

a Question which I put to him on this subject last week does not reveal a satisfactory result to this policy of guiding local authorities? Would he now give urgent consideration to doing something much more strenuous, knowing that he will have the support, probably of the majority of hon. Members but certainly of hon. Members on this side of the House?

Mr. Robinson: I am aware that in certain areas the wishes of the majority of local health authorities in favour of fluoridation are being frustrated by one or two who are opposed and who receive their water from the same supplier. Clearly this is a situation to which I must give consideration.

Mr. Cronin: Is it not the case that fluoridation is now a routine public health measure in the United States and most advanced countries? Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that many big advances in medical science, including vaccination and antiseptic surgery, have been the object of irrational opposition and that it is his positive duty to ensure that fluoridation takes place in this country on an extensive scale in the interests of our children and future generations?

Mr. Robinson: I certainly agree with what my hon. Friend says about the benefits of fluoridation. It is true that the United States and certain other countries are more advanced than we are in this matter. I hope to have fairly shortly the results of dental studies in the United Kingdom after 10 years of fluoridation. These will, I believe, give


further proof of the value of this measure. I hope that their publication will overcome any remaining doubts on the part of local authorities.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: What does the phrase "constantly under review" actually mean in this context?

Mr. Robinson: Precisely what it says.

Cigarette Coupons

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Health when he proposes to introduce legislation to ban cigarette coupons.

Mr. K. Robinson: As my hon. Friend knows, the timing of legislation is not for me.

Dr. Kerr: I suppose that I must say, "In thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply", but is he aware that his reply is not satisfactory? Does he realise that a number of us on this side of the House do not see the banning of cigarette coupons as the answer to this most complex problem of discouraging people from smoking? While we think that this is a very useful measure in indicating the Government's intentions towards cigarette smoking, can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the whole programme will be prosecuted with greater vigour than appears to be the case at the moment?

Mr. Robinson: When I discussed the possibility of a voluntary ban with the industry, I offered it a reasonable, indeed a generous, period for the winding up of existing schemes. Since the Government have announced their decision and the industry is on notice, I regard the winding up period as now running. Therefore, the timing of legislation is not perhaps as vital as it might otherwise have been.

Sir J. Rodgers: What evidence has the Minister that the giving of coupons by cigarette manufacturers increases the consumption of cigarettes?

Mr. Robinson: We had a considerable exchange at Question Time on a recent Monday on this matter, and I expressed my view that the giving of gifts—more gifts and better gifts the more cigarettes one smoked—prima facie suggested that it was an encouragement to smoke more.

Doctors

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Health if, in view of the critical national shortage of doctors, he will discuss with the British Medical Association and other interested parties the possibility of reducing the load on doctors by training a grade of assistant doctor to undertake routine medical work.

Mr. K. Robinson: No, sir. We must await the report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education, which is expected early next year.

Mr. Roberts: Has any work study analysis been carried out on the work load on the general practitioner from the point of view of seeing whether part of his routine work could be passed on to other qualified people such as health visitors?

Mr. Robinson: A number of studies have been made, and we are also helping doctors to make better use of their time, for example by assisting general practitioners to employ ancillary help.

Alcoholism

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Health (1) if he will now state the approximate date by which he expects to receive the finalised report of the survey into the problems involved in the rehabilitation of crude spirit drinkers;

(2) if, in view of the resolution on crude spirit drinkers by the Council of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, details of which have been sent to him, he will now consider using national resources to help solve the social problems arising in the East End of London, due to the concentration of vagrant crude spirit drinkers within the area.

Mr. K. Robinson: I have recently received advice on the organisation of facilities for the treatment of alcoholism, but it recognises that medical treatment offers little prospect of success unless voluntarily accepted. Such treatment is available for persons living in Tower Hamlets.

Mr. Hilton: I cannot understand what the Minister is referring to when he speaks of such treatment being available in my borough, unless he is referring to members of the Simon community which is a voluntary but ineffectual body. Is he


aware what delay in this matter means in my constituency? Is he aware that a near-violent confrontation took place between tenants and members of this community a short time ago? Does he not realise that if Government agencies do not do something in this matter, vigilante action by the people themselves is a possibility for which he will have to bear responsibility?

Mr. Robinson: On the question of treatment, facilities are available at St. Clements Hospital where there is a five-bed unit for alcoholics. I have deliberately limited my reply to the area of my own responsibility, which is that of treatment. My hon. Friend will recall that there was a petition from Tower Hamlets on the more general problem which was received last July by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office.

Haemophiliacs (Cars)

Dr. Winstanley: asked the Minister of Health if he will arrange for persons suffering from haemophilia to receive grants to enable them to make suitable adaptations to their own cars.

Mr. K. Robinson: Eligible disabled persons, including those suffering from haemophilia, are entitled under existing flies to a cash grant towards the cost of converting their own car to hand control.

Dr. Winstanley: This very small group of people, who have not been provided for in a long time, will be most grateful to the Minister for that statement.

Mr. Fortescue: Will the Minister give serious consideration to the suggestion that haemophiliacs and others should be issued with adapted cars if they are themselves willing to pay the difference in co between the car and the invalid tricycle which they have already?

Mr. Robinson: I have answered Questions before about the eligibility of haemophiliacs for motor cars rather than for invalid tricycles but, without any commitment, I am prepared to look at the matter again.


DOCTORS PROVIDING FULL GENERAL MEDICAL SERVICES IN ENGLAND AND WALES AT 1ST OCTOBER, 1966*


Age-group (years)
Under 30
30 to 34
35 to 39
40 to 44
45 to 49
50 to 54
55 to 59
60 to 64
65 and over


Percentage
…
…
3·3
10·6
15·0
17·7
14·3
13·8
10·1
8·2
7·0


*This is the latest date for which these figures are available.

General Practitioners

Mr. Judd: asked the Minister of Health what is the proportion of general practitioners in England and Wales in each of the following age groups, 25 to 30 years, 30 to 35 years, 35 to 40 years, 40 to 45 years, 45 to 50 years, 50 to 55 years, 55 to 60 years, 60 to 65 years and over 65 years.

Mr. K. Robinson: As the Answer consists of a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Judd: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the figures indicate a serious danger of a grave shortage of doctors in this important sphere of the Health Service? Will he assure the public and the House that everything possible is being done to overcome this potential shortage?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, but I would not accept what my hon. Friend said because I think he will see when he studies the table that there have been no great changes in the age structure in recent years, apart from the decrease in the proportion of those under 30. This is partly due to the welcome tendency for doctors over the years to undertake vocational training before they enter general practice. We are steadily increasing the intake to medical schools.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: What result, if any, has come from counter brain drain activities in the United States to relieve the shortage of doctors? Is it true that a number of doctors who have been asked to return have found it difficult to obtain employment in the specialities in which they operate?

Mr. Robinson: There is a later Question to be answered on this subject. The hon. Member will be glad to know that already 50 doctors have accepted appointments in this country and provisional arrangements are being made to bring them back here.

Following are the figures:

Experimental Health Checks

Mrs. Joyce Butler: asked the Minister of Health if he has now assessed the reports of his Social Science Research Unit and of the local medical officer of health in regard to the Rotherham experimental health checks; and what advice he is giving to local health authorities who are considering offering similar periodic screening facilitiis for certain types of illness.

Mr. K. Robinson: I am awaiting these reports. Authorities considering this kind of action are advised first to discuss their proposal with my medical officers, who can explain the problems involved.

Mrs. Butler: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the public response to these schemes has been most enthusiastic and almost overwhelming, and that a number of medical officers of health are raring to go on with similar schemes if they get an enthusiastic response from the Department? Would he look at this with some urgency and try to get his reports collected as soon as possible?

Mr. Robinson: As I have said before in this House, I am most interested in what is being done in Rotherham and elsewhere, but I am not satisfied on present evidence that this method of detecting disease should be recommended to local authorities generally. I have still to receive the report of the Rotherham Medical Officer of Health. The report of the Social Science Research Unit will, we hope, be completed very shortly.

Loughborough General Hospital (Nigel Haywood)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health why a small child, Nigel Haywood, who died shortly afterwards when recently taken to Loughborough General Hospital suffering from acute poisoning, was given no treatment nor first aid but referred to his private doctor; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. K. Robinson: As my hon. Friend knows the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board has appointed a committee of inquiry into this case and hope to receive its report early in the New Year.

Mr. Cronin: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that as this tragic incident happened several months ago it is absolutely incomprehensible to the people of Loughborough that there should be such a long delay in publishing the results of the inquiry?

Mr. Robinson: I am glad to have this opportunity of explaining. The child died on 23rd-24th September. The hospital board appointed a committee of inquiry on 11th October. I understand it is making good progress. It has to interview a doctor who is absent abroad but is expected to return in January. The committee hopes to complete the report and present it to the board before the end of January.

Psychiatric Social Workers

Mrs. Knight: asked the Minister of Health if he will take steps to place the salary rates of psychiatric social workers on an equivalent basis with those of other workers in the social services.

Mr. K. Robinson: This is primarily a matter for the negotiating bodies concerned, who take into account the relevant work and responsibilities of the several groups of workers in the social services.

Mrs. Knight: But would the Minister, who is, after all, not unconnected with the results of the inquiry, not recognise that social workers do an important and arduous and very difficult job, and psychiatric workers as much as any of them, and that there ought to be parity in their payment?

Mr. Robinson: Interdepartmental discussion is proceeding on co-ordination, training, recruitment and deployment of social workers generally, but remuneration is a matter for the negotiating bodies which deal with the different services and they need to have regard to the levels of work and responsibility as well as levels of qualification. The matter is under consideration.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that psychiatric social workers give exceptionally valuable services and provide continuing care for psychiatric patients not only in hospitals but also in their own homes, and that


therefore their wage and salary claims deserve very sympathetic consideration?

Mr. Robinson: I agree that they are a most valuable body of workers in the health and welfare services but, as my hon. Friend knows, remuneration is a matter for the appropriate Whitley Council in the Service.

Dentists' Remuneration

Mrs. Knight: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the increases in the charges for dental laboratory services, he will now take steps to increase the remuneration of dentists.

Mr. K. Robinson: No, Sir. No general increase in charges by dental laboratories have recently been brought to my attention.

Mrs. Knight: Is the Minister not aware that not only the cost of materials for work done generally in dental laboratories but also the effects of Selective Employment Tax have contributed to greatly increased charges in those laboratories? Will he please look at the facts again?

Mr. Robinson: They have been looked at. The level of dentists' fees has been fixed so as to allow for any rising trend in practice expenses and still to provide dentists, on average, with the target net income of £3,325 which was recommended by the independent review body. It is expected that this target will be achieved.

National Health Service (Effect of Devaluation)

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: asked the Minister of Health what additional funds a-e to be made available to maintain the hospital building programme, in view of rising costs as a result of devaluation.

Mr. Dean: asked the Minister of Health what additional funds are to be made available to maintain the local authority health and welfare capital programmes, in view of rising costs as a result of devaluation.

Mr. Holland: asked the Minister of Health (1) what additional funds are to be made available to maintain the hospital building programme in the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board area, in

view of rising costs as a result of devaluation;

(2) what additional funds are to be made available to maintain the local authority health and welfare capital building programme, in view of rising costs as a result of devaluation.

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Minister of Health what estimate he has made of the additional cost that will be incurred by the National Health Service and his Department as a result of devaluation.

Mr. Fortescue: asked the Minister of Health (1) what additional funds are to be made available to maintain the hospital building programme in the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board area in view of rising costs as a result of devaluation;

(2) what additional funds are to be made available to maintain the local authority health and welfare capital building programme in Liverpool in view of rising costs as a reult of devaluation.

Mr. K. Robinson: The effect of devaluation on Government expenditure is still under consideration and it is too early to make a statement.

Mr. Macmillan: But is the Minister aware that even on his own admission the rate of increase of hospital building expressed as a percentage of gross investment is not rising as fast as it did? Is he prepared to give an undertaking to the House at this stage that devaluation will not cause the proportion of total of gross fixed investment to rise even more slowly—the proportion devoted to hospital building?

Mr. Robinson: I do not accept the premises of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. If he would like to put a Question down I shall be very glad to answer it.

Mr. Dean: On the local authority side, does the Minister recollect that there has already been a cut—last year—of £3 million on capital programmes, and that unless more money is made available his plans for the local authority services will fall even further behind his original plans?

Mr. Robinson: It is not expected that devaluation will result in costs of the


local authorities' capital programmes rising by all that much, or, indeed, very rapidly.

Mr. Holland: Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that rising costs will not cause any delay in the establishment of the university hospital in Nottingham, a project which is eagerly awaited there?

Mr. Robinson: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, but he will understand that I cannot give a categorical assurance while the matter is under consideration.

Mr. Goodhart: Does the Minister expect that the cost of drug imports, now running at £15 million a year, will go up and up, and if so by how much? Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that foreign-owned drug companies which now control two-thirds of the drug industry in this country, will change their pricing policies? Does he appreciate that devaluation makes the brain drain of doctors and nurses even more attractive?

Mr. Robinson: I have no idea how the pharmaceutical industry will react to the effects of devaluation, but, no doubt, this will emerge in due course.

Mr. Fortescue: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that there will be no reduction in the capital programme in Liverpool without consultation with the regional hospital board and the Liverpool United Hospitals' Board?

Mr. Robinson: I can only give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that the allocation to regional boards will be conducted in future with the same scrupulous fairness as it has in the past.

Dr. Summerskill: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that when previous Conservative administrations were faced with financial crises they consistently slowed down hospital building programmes and cut social services?

Mr. Robinson: That, I think, is a fact, and my hon. Friend will remember that on the two previous occasions when there had to be a cutback in Government expenditure the hospital building programme remained unscathed.

Dr. John Dunwoody: In view of the suggestions in the national Press over the weekend that there may be cuts in ex-

penditure on the Health Service, will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will resist any efforts to reduce expenditure not only on the hospital building programme but on the Health Service as a whole?

Mr. Robinson: I take note of what my hon. Friend says.

Lord Balniel: The right hon. Gentleman has not given any figures. Does he accept that the only way to honour the Prime Minister's pledge that there will be no cut in the Health Service and the health and welfare services following devaluation is by making an actual increase in the expenditure on these services?

Mr. Robinson: What my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said was that the hospital building programme would not figure in the cuts in civil expenditure which he announced.

Nursery Schools

Miss Lestor: asked the Minister of Health if he will take steps to raise the educational content and standards of play groups to those of nursery schools.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Julian Snow): Local health authorities have already been given guidance on the educational aspects of private day care, and my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science are considering what further advice is needed.

Miss Lestor: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply, but would he bear in mind that the persistence with which some of us pursue this matter is due to the fact that owing to the inadequate provision of nursery schools more and more under-fives now come under his Ministry, and that the same attention should be given to the educational standards of play groups as is given to the number of lavatories and the hygienic conditions of the groups?

Mr. Snow: Although I should like to examine those assumptions a little more closely, may I inform my hon. Friend that there were two circulars issued in 1965 giving advice to local authorities about ways of meeting the training needs of people in charge of children. There have been two recent publications, which I


should be happy to send to my hon. Friend, entitled "Not Yet Five", and Play with a Purpose ", both issued by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. I take her point about the educational requirements of this category of child.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman referred to the co-operation of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Is he aware that there have been cases where local authorities seeking to make site provision for nursery schools next door to primary schools have had loan sanction refused? In view of the delay inevitably involved in providing nursery schools, will he see that better facilities for the education and looking after of children in these ways are made available at day nurseries and play centres?

Mr. Snow: Yes, Sir. These things must take their place in the queue, taking into 2.ccount the resources available. However, there are not many people who need to be convinced of the need to cater for this group of children. The hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that this Government have taken many steps and secured much information with a view to the planning of this form of educational facility.

National Health Service (Inquiry)

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: asked the Minister of Health what steps he intends to take to ensure that all outside interested bodies and organisations have an opportunity of making their views known in connection with the inquiry into the structure and administration of the National Health Service.

Mr. K. Robinson: In my statement of 6th November—[Vol. 753, c. 643–646.]—I give assurances of full consultation in die course with all interested parties and indicated that I would publish a Green Paper embodying my own tentative views as a basis for this consultation and for public discussion.

Mr. Macmillan: Are we to understand from that that the Green Paper will be published prior to consultation and that those bodies who are concerned because they have not been consulted in the course of its preparation will be consulted afterwards?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, that is so.

Pre-School Child

Miss Lestor: asked the Minister of Health if he will conduct a public inquiry into the needs of and provision for the pre-school child.

Mr. Snow: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to her Question on 23rd October.—[Vol. 751, c. 1336–7.]

Miss Lestor: While bearing in mind that my right hon. Friend has already proposed Amendments to the Nursery and Childminders Act which will help to tighten up some of the existing loopholes, will he bear in mind and comment upon the fact that, if his proposals are successful, the number of places providing child-minding facilities will be reduced and that, until a public inquiry is held to discover the number required, it will be impossible to legislate for this group of people?

Mr. Snow: That is a very important point. There was a great deal of information in the Yudkin Report which will enable us to assess the problem as it develops.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Is the Minister aware that this is much more than a question of numbers, and that it is clear that the social, emotional and other needs of the pre-school child are not sufficiently catered for and perhaps not sufficiently realised? Therefore, in my view and, I hope, that of the Minister, the Yudkin Report, supported by numerous child welfare societies, has made out an overwhelming case for a Government inquiry.

Mr. Snow: I am not certain that further inquiries are necessary. We have a volume of information at our disposal. One interesting point is that, within the Department, we are reviewing urgently the research already carried out into the effects of the separation of children from their mothers during the working day. It is not so much a lack of information as the need for still further co-ordination of the eventual effort.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

South Bedfordshire (Maternity Provisions)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Health how many babies


were born in hospital in South Bedfordshire in 1960, 1963, and 1966; what proportion of the total numbers born this represents; and what steps are being taken to increase maternity provision in the area.

Mr. Snow: I regret that figures for South Bedfordshire alone are not available. I have now written to the hon. Member about the increased maternity provision proposed.

Mr. Roberts: Have any investigations been carried out in this area into whether the proportion of admissions could be considerably increased if the time spent in hospital after childbirth was marginally reduced?

Mr. Snow: That is a question for clinical assessment about which I should not like to express a view. However, the contract for the additional maternity beds which it is proposed to have in operation at the end of 1970 or the beginning of 1971 is going out almost forthwith.

Macclesfield Hospital

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Minister of Health when reconstruction of the Macclesfield Hospital will be started; and when is the expected completion date.

Mr. Snow: I cannot add to the reply given to the hon. Member on 4th July last year.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that that reply was a long time ago? Does he recall that in the past three years I have repeatedly pointed out that Macclesfield Hospital was built 130 years ago? What is going to be done about it? Is this another broken Labour promise?

Mr. Snow: I do not think that this is a question of a broken Labour promise, although I must say that had there been earlier consideration during the time of the administration supported by the hon. and gallant Member, the present position might not have been as bad as it is. The

WAITING LISTS FOR GENERAL SURGERY


A. NUMBERS (AT 31ST DECEMBER, 1966)


Area
Total
Per 1,000 population


Shrewsbury Hospital Management Committee
…
…
…
2,009
6·8


Birmingham Regional Hospital Board
…
…
…
19,123
3·8


England and Wales
…
…
…
159,863
3·3

regional hospital board has received no reduction in the capital available to it. This project will take its place according to the appropriate needs in the region.

Hospital Facilities, Shrewsbury

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Health (1) whether he will now make a statement on the hospital facilities available in Shrewsbury, following the representations made to him by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury;

(2) whether he will now make a statement on the waiting lists for surgical treatment necessary for patients in Shrewsbury, following the representations made to him by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury; and how this list and the waits involved compare with those for other areas.

Mr. Snow: The present facilities are inadequate, with correspondingly long waiting lists. The remedy lies in the new district general hospital now being built.
I will circulate figures in relation to waiting lists in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Does not the Minister agree that the waiting lists for the service in this area are among the worst in the country? In those circumstances, does he not realise that it is wholly inadequate for him to put forward proposals, as he has done, going as far ahead as 1971? Does he not realise that a great deal more urgency is needed?

Mr. Snow: I have said that the waiting lists are undesirably long. We are taking every action that we can within our resources. Arrangements are being made for the admission of patients to the R.A.F. Hospital at Cosford to help alleviate the situation. There has been a marked reduction in the total number on the surgical waiting lists. But I agree with the hon. Member that the position is unsatisfactory, and it will be reviewed the whole time. It is accepted as a bad case.

Following are the figures:

B. PERIOD OF WAIT BY PATIENTS ADMITTED FROM THE WAITING LISTS IN 1966 (EXCLUDING URGENT ADMISSIONS NOT FROM THE WAITING LIST)*



Percentage of patients waiting


Area
Under 6 months
6–12 months
12–24 months
24–36 months
Over 36 months


Shrewsbury Hospital Management Committee
…
…
76·5
13·8
8·0
1·7
—


Birmingham Regional Hospital Board
…
…
86·2
9·2
3·4
0·9
0·3


* Based partly on 10 per cent. sample.

Out-Patient Clinics, South-East Kent

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that patients have to wait between four and 10 weeks to obtain a new appointment to attend outpatient clinics at hospitals under the control of the South-East Kent Hospital Management Committee; and what steps h is taking to remedy this delay.

Mr. Snow: In 49 out of a total of 67 out-patient clinics, the waiting period for non-urgent cases is less than four weeks. At only one clinic is it 10 weeks. Urgent cases receive priority. The regional board has taken steps designed to spread the non-urgent load between clinics.

Mr. Costain: Is the Minister satisfied with this situation? Is it better or worse than in the rest of the country? May we have the Minister's assurance that no cuts due to the economic situation will make this situation worse?

Mr. Snow: There is a Question later on the Order Paper about that aspect of the matter. One of the troubles in this area is that there has been a build-up of waiting lists because there has been a tendency for references to be made to specific consultants. If the load is more equally shared—and we are taking steps to get that done—the position may be alleviated.

Nurses

Dr. Winstanley: asked the Minister of Health if the decision of the Manchester Regional Hospital Board to limit current nurse recruitment in order to reduce expenditure is in accordance with Government policy.

Mr. K. Robinson: Regional hospital boards determine their own priorities to contain expenditure within approved estimates.

Dr. Winstanley: Is the Minister aware that the circular recently issued by the Manchester Regional Hospital Board suggests that nurse recruitment is now to be limited to a figure below that which was previously considered to be necessary? Does he not agree that this is the very last field in which economies should be made?

Mr. Robinson: The hon. Member will be glad to know that since April, 1964, the Manchester Regional Hospital Board has increased its nursing staff in the region by very nearly a quarter. I understand that the hospitals in greatest need of additional nursing staff will be the least affected by these limitations, and psychiatric hospitals are not affected at all.

Mr. Pavitt: Will the Minister have a realistic revision of establishments for nurses in hospitals which often do not give a true indication of the shortages which exist?

Mr. Robinson: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Over a long period we have considered whether it is possible to lay down national standards, as it were, for establishments. The trouble is that hospitals vary so much in their nature and the work which they do that this is proving extremely difficult.

Lord Balniel: Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought not to shunt off his responsibility to the regional hospital board? Does he not recognise that the restriction on hospital nursing staff to 90 per cent. of the optimum establishment is causing serious difficulties in hospitals? Is it not right that the public should be aware that the problem is not a shortage of recruits but a shortage of finance coming from the Treasury?

Mr. Robinson: That is not necessarily the answer in every part of the country. The Board is not seeking to reduce its expenditure but to limit the increase to


a level which it can contain within its approved estimates. There is nothing new in that. It happened during the time of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Drug Addicts (Treatment Centres)

Mr. Tilney: asked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to expedite the setting up of treatment centres for drug addicts; and whether special funds will be granted to regional hospital boards for this purpose.

Mr. K. Robinson: Additional facilities for the treatment of heroin addiction are being set up as quickly as possible, mainly in the London area, and my Department is in close touch with the hospital authorities. The cost is not expected to be very large in relation to the funds available to regional hospital boards and I do not contemplate that special financial arrangements will be necessary. Consideration is given to any case of difficulty.

Mr. Tilney: Will it not take a long time before the whole country is covered by these treatment centres? If extra funds are not to be provided, will not other facilities have to be cut? Can the Minister say whether in the meantime general practitioners will be able to continue to prescribe for drug addicts?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, Sir. On many occasions I have made it clear to the House that the ban on general practitioners prescribing will not be operative until we are satisfied that sufficient treatment facilities exist in the hospital service. But outside London there is no evidence that the current demand for treatment is not being met. This is very largely a London problem.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Minister aware that facilities in the London area for the treatment of drug addicts are woefully inadequate? Will he say what they are and what they are likely to be within the next few weeks?

Mr. Robinson: I do not accept that they are woefully inadequate. I have said that we have not yet completed the total of facilities which we want to be available for the time when the new arrangements come into operation. At the end of October there were about 70

patients receiving in-patient treatment and 180 receiving out-patient treatment for heroin addiction in some 40 hospitals.

Lord Balniel: Can the Minister explain why he will not name the hospitals where he is setting up treatment centres for drug addicts? Until we know the names it is almost impossible to assess the progress which is being made.

Mr. Robinson: I do not agree that it is impossible to assess the progress being made. I have given the numbers. The reason why we do not give the names of the hospitals is that it is unwise to release names if we are to prevent addicts rushing to a number of hospitals in succession, but generally practitioners in the London area have been told where treatment is available.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in the setting up of treatment centres, particularly out-patient treatment centres, adequate care will be given to providing social welfare staff as otherwise these centres will be almost valueless?

Mr. Robinson: I would not say that they will be almost valueless, but I agree with the implication of the question that proper social welfare assistance is very important indeed.

Mental Illness

Mr. Moonman: asked the Minister of Health (1) how many male and female patients aged 20 years and over were admitted to mental illness hospitals and units, including teaching hospitals, during 1966 and what was the rate for each sex per 100,000 of the population for the same age group;

(2) how many male and female patients, aged 20 years and over, were discharged from mental illness hospitals and units, including teaching hospitals, during 1966: and what was the rate for each sex per 100,000 of the population for the same age group.

Mr. Snow: I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Moonman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Will he state what steps he is taking to improve mental health in communities where the rate is far in excess of the national average?


Also will he say something about the need for improved community care, because of the great increase in discharges?

Mr. Snow: I think the figures will indicate the general improvement in care that is being provided, as evidenced by the fact that there has been a steady decline over the past few years in the total hospital population covering mental illness 2nd the patients for this type of

MENTAL ILLNESS HOSPITALS AND UNITS (INCLUDING TEACHING HOSPITALS) 1966 PATIENTS AGED 20 AND OVER



Males
Females
Total



Nuumber
Rate per 100,000 Population
Number
Rate per 100,000 Population
Number
Rate per 100,000 Population


Admissions*
…
65,675
415
95,828
549
161,503
485


Discharges and transfers
…
59,391
375
86,775
497
146,166
439


Discharges, transfers and deaths
…
66,771
422
97,386
557
164,157
493


* Includes transfers from psychiatric beds in other hospitals and units.

Hospital Doctors (Expenses)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health what is his estimate of the total sum paid to hospital doctors in addition to remuneration in respect of travel expenses and grants for conferences, study leave, &c., at home and overseas, expenses allowances, fees for domiciliary visits and any other fringe benefits.

Mr. K. Robinson: The total sum paid out annually in respect of domiciliary visits is in the region of £2 million, but I regret that information for an estimate under the other headings is not available.

Mr. Pavitt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in October of 60 doctors in one region given permission to attend conferences, including New York, Kuwait and Rome, 49 were consultants and only 3 were registrars? As it would seem that consultants can be spared from their work more easily than registrars, should we not pay registrars more than we pay consultants?

Mr. Robinson: I think there is a fallacy in my hon. Friend's logic. He may like to know that the new arrangements for study leave enable doctors in training grades to have up to 30 days paid leave each year for fully approved courses. Senior staff may have up to 30 days in three-year periods.

case has gone down to 121,754 at the end of 1966. It is noteworthy that the number of female patients substantially exceeds the number of males which is apparently accounted for by their greater longevity and particularly higher proneness to mental illness, which is not a matter easily coped with in question and answer.

Following are the figures:

Dialysis Units (Staff)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health what is his policy regarding the employment of trained staff in dialysis departments in National Health Service hospitals; whether salary scales have been fixed; which negotiating machinery applies and whether it is administered by the matron or by the hospital secretary; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. K. Robinson: The departments are staffed by doctors, nurses and supporting technical and ancillary staff. The salaries of nurses are those negotiated by the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council and I have determined salaries for the technical and ancillary staffs not at present covered by Whitley agreements. The staff attached to these units work under medical direction.

Mr. Pavitt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is an area of uncertainty over the responsibility of qualified nursing staff concerned with these duties? Will he look at this in view of the heavy work and responsibilities which these staff are carrying.

Mr. Robinson: I should be glad to look at any problem raised by my hon. Friend.

Dr. Winstanley: With reference to technical staff, will the Minister bear in


mind that this work involves very considerable hazards to health and that it has resulted in a number of disasters? Will he bear this in mind when establishing the pay of these technical staff as against that of other technical staff?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, I am aware of that, and I think these considerations have been borne in mind in fixing these salaries.

Private Beds

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Health whether general administrative costs within a hospital are included in assessing charges for private beds in hospitals.

Mr. K. Robinson: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that pay beds in many hospitals are pricing themselves out of the market? Would it not be better for them to carry the overheads of their department rather than the very high overheads of the whole hospital which accrue to the Health Service as a whole?

Mr. Robinson: The current method of calculating charges for pay beds is based on the Regulations of 1953 which were introduced when the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) was Minister.

Mr. Molloy: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that further aid to pay beds would mean that people who can afford to pay for these things would be, to a degree, subsidised by the general taxpayer? Would he not agree that the ideal solution to all this would be to raise the status of National Health Service hospitals so that pay beds became a thing of the past and cash would have no further consideration in the treatment of sickness?

Mr. Robinson: I have said that I am very anxious indeed to raise standards in the National Health Service so that no one would wish to be treated privately, but in answering this Question I was referring to current methods of calculating prices. My hon. Friend will know that new methods are proposed in the Health Services and Public Health Bill which is now before the House.

Mr. Frederic Harris: When there is such a great shortage in the hospitals because money is not being found to pay for nurses, is it not crazy to follow a policy of closing down wards of private beds which, if established, would help the whole situation?

Mr. Robinson: I think the hon. Member misunderstands the position. The reduction in the number of pay beds which took place as a result of my review means that the beds released are now available for non-paying patients.

Mr. Dean: When does the Minister expect his new proposal for assessing charges on a national basis to be in operation?

Mr. Robinson: Certainly not until the Bill is on the Statute Book.

Whitchurch General Hospital Maternity Unit)

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Health what proposals he has for a maternity unit at the Whitchurch General Hospital, in view of the widespread local support for such a unit.

Mr. Snow: None, Sir. Provision for Whitchurch is made in the new maternity unit at Copthorne Hospital, Shrewsbury.

Mr. Biffen: Does not the hon. Gentleman recall that earlier in Question Time today he confessed that hospital conditions in the Shrewsbury district were inadequate? Is he aware that over 6,000 people have petitioned for such a hospital and that the Answer he has given will encourage the belief that hospital planners, whether in Birmingham or London, show a woeful indifference to local needs popularly expressed?

Mr. Snow: I believe there is a great deal to be done in educating the public into a general understanding that we cannot with justification prevent patients from getting the best technical treatment. This technical treatment can be provided only within the concept of the district general hospital. That is why I have given the reply I gave. It is quite wrong to say the regional board is insensitive to local demand. It is a questiton not only of highly sophisticated equipment but also of the provision of trained staff.

Pharmacists

Mr. Ronald Bell: asked the Minister of Health what is the deficiency of basic grade pharmacists in the hospital service in the North-West Metropolitan Region; and what action he is taking to recruit more pharmacists.

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Minister of Health what action he will take to increase the number of pharmacists employed in the national hospital service.

Mr. K. Robinson: There is a shortage a number of areas including the North-West Metropolitan Region. To improve recruitment the salaries of hospital pharmacists were substantially increased earlier this year and ways of improving the career structure are being studied urgently.

Mr. Bell: Can the right hon. Gentleman give me the figure for the North-West Metropolitan Region, which is what I asked for? Can he say whether it is of the order of 80 per cent., because, if it is, that is a very serious deficiency indeed which seems to indicate further action beyond that taken earlier this year?

Mr. Robinson: There are no fixed standards by reference to which they can be precisely measured. I agree it is serious in the North-West Metropolitan Region but at the last staffing inquiry over the whole country a shortfall of those in post on estimated requirements was 22 per cent. in terms of whole-time equivalents. The last staffing report showed an increase in staff in post—a small increase—from 1,405 to 1,444 in the year ended 30th September, 1966.

Mr. Goodhart: Does the Minister appreciate that during last year the number of pharmacists, who are basic to the hospital services throughout the country, has fallen by almost 50 per cent.? Will he press on with a new career structure as a matter of urgency?

Mr. Robinson: We are taking whatever steps we can and I think we ought to see how the recruitment position goes following the recent considerable increase in salaries.

Hospital Schools (Staff)

Lord Balniel: asked the Minister of Health what proportion of the supervisors and assistant supervisors in hospi-

tal schools for the mentally handicapped and mentally subnormal have the appropriate National Association for Mental Health qualification or other recognised qualification.

Mr. K. Robinson: About 21 per cent.

Lord Balniel: Is not this proportion of trained staff in the hospital schools substantially below the proportion of trained staff in the junior training centres? Will the right hon. Gentleman bring the conditions of service in the hospital schools, particularly those relating to holidays, into line with the staff in the junior training centres?

Mr. Robinson: I take note of that suggestion. Arrangements were made in September 1966 to enable suitable hospital staff to be seconded on full pay to courses leading to qualifications. So far, we have had 28 applications for secondment, all of which have been approved.

Queen Victoria Nursing Institute, Wolverhampton (Blood Transfusions)

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of a recent death resulting from the system adopted for identifying blood for transfusions at Queen Victoria Nursing Institute, Wolverhampton; and what steps he is taking to prevent any further failures to identify bottled blood at this hospital.

Mr. Snow: I am aware of this tragic incident. Blood for transfusion at this hospital is labelled in accordance with the uniform hospital system for distinguishing the blood group and I have no evidence of need for change in the system. The hospital management committee is considering what action is needed locally to prevent a repetition.

Mr. Montgomery: Can the Minister say whether it is intended to hold an inquiry into this case? Is he aware that while he may be satisfied with the system a lot of people are not? Two people of the same name were in the hospital and the wrong blood was given to a lady who subsequently died? Is he aware that this has caused a great deal of alarm? I would be grateful if he would have an inquiry into the whole business?

Mr. Snow: The system is perfectly all right. There were errors committed, the hospital management committee has


arranged for the paints brought out at the inquest to be studied by its nursing committee and the group medical advisory committee. I understand that questions of negligence are likely to be raised in civil proceedings against the hospital, and in those circumstances the House and the hon. Gentleman will perhaps forgive me for not elaborating.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS

Catering

Mr. Webster: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he has authorised special sales of wines, spirits or tobacco, in bulk, by the catering department.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
The Chairman of the Catering Sub-Committee on 27th July notified the Committee that wines and spirits would be available at special prices. These have been offered to Members, staff and the Press, and priced on the advice of the Manager in consultation with the shippers. Tobacco is not being sold at a special price.

Mr. Webster: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there will be considerable resentment if it is found that these attractive offers are made not from existing stocks of the House of Commons but that the House is simply being used as an agency for an outside wine merchant?

Mr. Maxwell: I am not aware of any resentment. On the contrary, the offer has been well received and is proving very successful.

Mr. Webster: asked the Lord President of the Council what stocks of wine are held for the purpose of the special offer of wines and spirits; and what was the cost of these stocks.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
We do not hold stocks for this purpose. The wine merchants operating the cellar stocking system took our old stock away and, in producing the special offer list for Members, have augmented these and enlarged the wine list by adding some of their own stocks.

Mr. Webster: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the House of Commons is

being used as a mail order agency for an outside wine merchant which is a subsidiary of a very large group of brewers?

Mr. Maxwell: I am not saying that at all. All that has happened is that the Catering Sub-Committee, looking for revenue in order to ensure that the charge on public funds is reduced, has continued the practice of providing Members, the staff and the Press with an opportunity of acquiring wines for purchase at Christmas time. As I have said to the hon. Gentleman, this is proving both popular and successful.

Sir D. Glover: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how the Catering Sub-Committee can enter into this sort of arrangement in an organisation which does not pay rates and which is not in equal competition with people outside? Does he not realise that this is very unfair trading?

Mr. Maxwell: We have entered into this arrangement by authority vested in the Catering Sub-Committee of the House. I believe that it is in the interests of the House that it be continued.

Mr. Webster: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of those replies, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Lord President of the Council what progress has been made in considering the suggestion that the dining facilities at the Palace of Westminster should be available to the general public when Parliament is in recess.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
Active consideration is being given to this problem. Positive steps have been already taken to enable this service to be provided, if the Services Committee approves it. It is hoped to make a further statement as soon as possible.

Mr. Hamilton: Can my hon. Friend say whether a decision will be taken in time to provide this facility for the next Summer Recess, and can he give the House an assurance that the decision will be taken by elected Members and not by any official of the House?

Mr. Maxwell: To answer the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary Question, the decision can and will be taken in time for the Summer Recess, subject to the technical facilities being available. In answer to the second part, of course, the decision will be taken by the House and by no one else.

Dr. Winstanley: In addition, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the possibility of additional revenue being gained by providing refreshments for members of the public on Saturdays?

Mr. Maxwell: We will certainly look into that as a further suggestion for improving the revenue and for making available the resources of this House to the staff, Members and their guests and visitors.

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Lord President of the Council whether, since the Catering Department is now out of the red, he will now arrange for a general increase in the wages of the staff.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
No. An all-round increase of 10 per cent. was awarded recently.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Does the hon. Member recall that the former policy was that so long as the prices were kept low there should not be any substantial increase in wages which would not be appropriate. Now that prices have soared, is there any reason why there should be a restriction on a further reasonable increase in wages for our staff?

Mr. Maxwell: There is no restriction on a further wage increase for our staff. As the hon. and learned Gentleman will recollect, the House has generally expressed its desire that the servants of the House be paid commensurate with the remarkable efforts that they are putting in. However, having just received an award of 10 per cent., it would be a little premature to talk about any additional awards. Furthermore, as I expect the House will note when the first report of the Catering Sub-Committee is published, it appears that we are breaking even, and we expect to be making a profit next year. I believe that we must stick to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked,

namely, that we pay bonuses only after they have been earned and not before.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Lord President of the Council whether lie is aware of the deterioration of the quality of food in the Members' Tea Room; and whether he will give an assurance that future expenditure will be used to maintain food standards rather than on furniture and decoration.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
I have no knowledge that the food has deteriorated in the Members' Tea Room. Since the installation of the new equipment, I understand that it has considerably improved.

Dame Irene Ward: Is the hon. Gentleman aware, just as an example, that now it is not possible to get any decent plain biscuits—only nasty cheap sugary ones, like the Prime Minister's Questions and Answers?

Mr. Maxwell: I would not wish to engage in any polemics with the hon. Lady. If she has any complaints about the biscuits, perhaps she would put in a recommendation and the Manager will look at it.

Automatic Telephone Exchange

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: asked the Lord President of the Council when he expects to be able to install an automatic telephone exchange for the Palace of Westminster, following the report of the Postmaster-General.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): It is hoped that the report from my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General will be available shortly. At this stage there is nothing I can add to the Answer I gave my lion. Friend on 24th July.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is false economy not to modernise this place? The present switchboard is not only grossly unfair to the operators using it, but it is grossly inefficient and a great burden on Members of Parliament, preventing them from doing their job properly.

Mr. Crossman: I think everybody here realises that we should modernise the


switchboard. We ought to modernise it after we have received the report from the Postmaster-General.

Select Committees

Mr. Cant: asked the Lord President of the Council when he proposes to move to appoint a Select Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs.

Mr. Crossman: I explained my proposals for Select Committees this Session on 14th November, but I will certainly bear this possibility in mind.

Mr. Cant: Does my hon. Friend feel, following the economic events of the last few weeks, that there is or is not a special urgency attaching to this type of Select Committee dealing with a most critical phase of policy-making in the House?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that we ought to appoint Select or Specialist Committees in terms of current difficulties. There has always been a strong case for committees of this kind, and that case has been strengthened by what has been happening recently.

Mr. Marquand: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will move for the establishment of anad hocSpecialist Committee to examine the social costs involved in the Government's fuel policy.

Mr. Crossman: As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant), I explained my proposals for Select Committees this Session on 14th November. This particular aspect of fuel policy has been, and is being, taken into account.

Mr. Marquand: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to have the sort of effective virile committee system which he believes in, they ought to be able to take up particularly urgent topics of public concern, as well as looking at other issues, and that this one, because of the interest that it arouses in mining constituencies in particular, would be a very good candidate for an ad hoc Specialist Committee?

Mr. Crossman: As my hon. Friend will notice, the number of candidates increases with the number of questions asked. This is a serious question, but whether we should ask a Specialist Com-

mittee to be solely devoted to examining the social costs involved in this matter is questionable.

Prime Minister (Questions)

Earl of Dalkeith: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will make arrangements to ensure that additional time is available for addressing Oral Questions to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Crossman: I will consider this proposal when we arrange the Question roster for the post-Christmas period.

Earl of Dalkeith: Will the Leader of the House bear in mind that there would appear to be a valid case for this request in view of the Prime Minister's assumption of direct personal control over the economy, quite apart from the obvious requirement to give him double-talking time?

Mr. Crossman: Whatever views the noble Lord may have about the Prime Minister, I suspect his real feelings are about his own difficulties. If he has difficulties in getting answers, he should ask the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten), who has such remarkable success.

Sir A. V. Harvey: As an alternative suggestion, will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister not to pad his answers so that he deliberately avoids getting to the next Question?

Mr. Crossman: I think that is extremely unjust. The last thing of which one could accuse the Prime Minister is avoiding a debate in this House. On the last occasion, Members who were determined to ask the Prime Minister about the Common Market were perfectly entitled, in my view, to take their time, even if it did mean that others suffered.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: Would my right hon. Friend agree that there is a serious aspect to this Question applying to other Ministers as well? For example, since the last Recess there has been only one opportunity to ask Questions of the Foreign Secretary. Would he look at the whole position of Question Time with a view to increasing the opportunity for Members?

Mr. Crossman: This is an eternal question which the Leader of the House has


to deal with. Every time we do the roster we have the awareness that Members would like a shift in the balance between Ministers. On the whole, I think that the present balance is fair, but I am always prepared to receive recommendations about it.

Accommodation

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will move -for the appointment of a Joint Committee to consider the allocation of space in the Palace of Westminster in order to ensure for this House a proportion more in relation to its size and functions.

Mr. Crossman: I think this issue must await the outcome of the consideration being given at present to the constitution and functions of another place.

Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the numbers in the other place will be sufficiently reduced that their case for their existing accommodation will be further weakened? Is it not the case that even in 1953 they had over 20,000 square feet of space more than they were entitled to by their numbers? Will he take urgent steps to get rid of the Lord Chancellor's Department from this Palace?

Mr. Crossman: These are all important questions which indicate the state of the cold war which now exists between ourselves and the other place, and which might conceivably be ended by a change of the sort that I suggest.

Standing Order No. 9

Mr. Ridley: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will move to revise Standing Order No. 9 so that topics of an urgent and important nature can be debated as they arise.

Mr. Crossman: The House has just approved a complete revise of this Standing Order and I am sure the majority of the House would agree that it ought to be given a fair run to see how it works in practice. In my view the first example was a pretty good one.

Mr. Ridley: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is a strong demand in all quarters of the House, including below the Gangway on his own side, that those

matters should be debated, as they arise quite frequently? Could he say, therefore, how many Standing Order No. 9 debates he would expect to see during the course of a year?

Mr. Crossman: I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman. The question of the number given depends on Mr. Speaker and not on the Leader of the House. If the hon. Gentleman is interested, he could read the Report of the Select Committee, which makes suggestions on this. Now we have passed a Standing Order which leaves it to you, Mr. Speaker, to decide, and you will decide.

Mr. J. T. Price: Whilst I welcome some of the measures which have been taken to improve the administration of the House, will my right hon. Friend receive with due caution these blandishments from the other side of the House on Standing Order No. 9? Would he not agree that if we carry this principle too far we shall have no protection whatever for the Orders of the Day, with the result that general business already in the pipeline will he pushed back and back and nobody will be able to make any forward arrangements?

Mr. Crossman: I would have thought that those of us who studied the Report of the Select Committee on Standing Order No. 9 realised that this was a bold but perfectly practicable extension of the desire for topical debates. So far we have had one on what seemed to me a thoroughly justifiable subject. I would have thought that the best thing the House can do is to wait and see what happens and be content. I am prepared to say that the increase in the number of topical debates was part of the balanced change in procedure which I have been trying to put forward.

QUESTIONS

Mr. Deedes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You may have observed that out of the number of Questions that we have reached today, 12 were addressed to the Lord President of the Council, who, I am sorry to say, has now left and to whom I gave no notice.
Seven of these Questions were concerned with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Maxwell) and our domestic affairs. It is not for me to


make criticism of the list, but I know that there are hon. Members who could wish that some other channel be found for discussing in such detail matters of our housekeeping which really are not—

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to hear the point that the right hon. Gentleman is raising.

Mr. Deedes: I can only speak for myself, but I think that other hon. Members would agree with me that it would be the wish of at least a majority that some other way be found of dealing with these matters, perhaps in consultation with yourself and the Lord President of the Council and his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, with whose duties all of us have the greatest sympathy, so as to ensure that such a high proportion of the Questions on the Order Paper on a Monday should not be taken up with matters of almost purely domestic concern which, I think, do not find a very warm response in the minds of the public, who might expect us to be discussing something different.

Mr. William Hamilton: Further to that point of order. I hope that you will not take it for granted that the majority of the House take the same view as the right hon. Gentleman, Mr. Speaker. Some of these Questions are extremely important

and some are trivial, and that is so in the case of Questions to all Ministers. It is for the Table to judge whether the Question is in order and for the House to judge on the order of Ministers answering Questions upon any day of the week.

Mr. Speaker: The point raised by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) is not a point of order. The hon. Member for Fife West (Mr. William Hamilton) is quite right. The Table has no power to refuse any Question which is in order. The point of view which has been expressed by the right hon. Member for Ashford, that the affairs of the Kitchen Committee might not take such an amount of the Lord President of the Council's space on the Order Paper that they do is a question for the hon. Members themselves, not for the Chair.

Mr. Pavitt: On another point of order. The Minister of Health, replying to a Question by the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan), stated that he would be giving a reply later on, to another Question on the Order Paper—No. 67, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson). Is it possible that the Answer could be given?

Mr. Speaker: It is quite possible, but I have not been asked and so it will not be given.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL LOANS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.35 p.m.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill deals with the accounting arrangements for Government borrowing and lending. It might be convenient if first, I deal very shortly with the history of the matter and then explain what the main proposals are, and then explain what matters are not affected because the House, I think, is of the opinion that some matters are altered which are not altered. I can then perhaps deal, finally, with those matters which are altered and hope then that the Bill would receive, in due course, a Second Reading.
To deal with the history of the matter. It is known that all Governments are God-fearing; but however God-fearing they are they find it increasingly necessary to be both borrowers and lenders. As the years have gone by this has grown, certainly in this country, to such an extent that the legislation which was introduced, mostly in the last century, to make provision for these matters is no longer relevant.
The borrowing and lending is large in volume and extent. The number of bodies concerned is much greater and as a result of being tied to the legislation of the last century, the accounts produced and the figures and explanations put before this House are inadequate in the sense that they lack clarity and, in certain cases, are almost misleading. It is necessary for every hon. and right hon. Member, when the Budget and accounts are published, to do his own sums to find out what has been happening, because the accounts in their statutory form do not give adequate information. The famous "line" is no longer a very relevant consideration and, therefore, my right hon. Friend the then Chancellor, in his Budget speech in April this year, announced that there would be a review. He made it clear that he would review not only the form of the matter, but the substance as well.
Perhaps I could give an indication of the matters which were reviewed. The House is, naturally, entitled to know what matters of substance were reviewed and if they are not in the Bill why they have been excluded. It is clear that when one is thinking of the Government's position as borrower and lender, particularly in relation to nationalised industries and local authorities, there are three possible positions that could be adopted. The borrowing could be done by the organisation itself or one could have a separate, "in-between" agency to do the borrowing or the lending. Another alternative is that the Government could do it, as they largely do at present.
The first possibility, that of reverting to the system whereby nationalised industries particularly raised their capital on the market by issuing securities which were guaranteed by the Government, was examined during the review. The House will remember that this was abandoned for very good reasons in 1956. Those reasons are explained in the Report of the Radcliffe Committee with admirable clarity and, it was decided, they are still valid. They related mainly to the difficulties of managing the market when there were a number of comparatively small issues, as would be represented here, continually coming before the public.
It was decided that that alternative was still not a good idea. We considered the second possibility, of setting up a separate agency, which would deal with the lending of nationalised industries, local authorities and others which would undertake the necessary borrowing. After consideration we reached the conclusion that such an agency would convey no facilities and no advantages which the Treasury did not already possess and that there was no point in inserting an intermediate body. We are left, therefore, with the Government doing their own borrowing but with the decision to bring the accounting arrangements up to date. The Bill is intended to carry out that conclusion.
That is the history of the matter. I turn now to the main proposals in the Bill. The major proposal is that which is clearly set out in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum and consists of separating out the borrowing and lending transactions of the Government


from their normal receipts and payments on revenue account. The broad intention is to bringing within the new National Loans Fund, which is to be set up, the transactions in which the Government act as a borrower and the transactions in which the Government act as a lender of unsubsidised loans. It is necessary to limit it in that sense. Accordingly, the Consolidated Fund will continue to accommodate receipts from taxation and ordinary expenditure out of moneys voted by Parliament.
I think that I ought at this point to remove a possible confusion relating to the word "Exchequer". I do not propose to refer to that term any more: In the past it has been the custom to refer to payments into the Exchequer and to refer to payments out of the Consolidated Fund. To begin with, as a new Member I often wondered how this was possible. I imagined the Exchequer accumulating and growing fat and a curious fund, like a magician's hat, out of which we could continually take things without anything ever going into it.

Sir Douglas Glover: Many people still think so.

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman is perceptive, as usual.
Many people still think so, but it is not the case, because as he and I discovered a long time ago, these two are one and the same thing. The confusion arises through having two different names. Anything that we can do to remove confusion is helpful. Therefore, I propose in future to refer to the Consolidated Fund as such and to the new National Loans Fund as such.
This does not mean that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom I am glad to see in his place, is no longer to be described in his traditional way. It is not my intention to refer to him as "the Chancellor of the Consolidated Fund and the National Loans Fund". We must in his case regard the Exchequer as an all-embracing title.
There will, as I have indicated, therefore be two separate accounts—the National Loans Fund and the Consolidated Fund. The deficit of the Consolidated Fund will be transferred to the

National Loans Fund, or, if it is a surplus, as is normally the case, will be so transferred. The "line" as we now know it will disappear and the published accounts will, I think, show what people want to know, as far as that is consistent with preparing our accounts on a cash basis.
I regret, however much we look at it, that we are driven to the conclusion that the Government are compelled to prepare the accounts on a cash basis, if only for the purpose of presenting information rapidly to the House, because cash accounts are presented immediately; they are there available every day, whereas accounts prepared on an income and expenditure basis take a very long time indeed. If only for that reason, it is necessary to continue on a cash basis. I repeat that the accounts that are published will in future, after the Bill becomes law, enable the House to understand the situation with much greater clarity and intelligibility.
The statements that are presented at Budget time immediately, so that the House can make its decisions, will continue to be prepared on a cash basis. I know that the hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) is very anxious that they should be prepared as far as possible on an income basis. I can only repeat that this would mean such a delay as would make it impossible to give accurate figures. One can always give approximate figures. It would make it impossible to give accurate figures at the time of the Budget. Although, therefore, the balance which will be shown will not be precisely the same as would be ultimately shown on accounts prepared in the way he and I would both like, nevetheless they will be much nearer to that figure than is the case at present.
There are several advantages to be claimed from revising and modernising the arrangements in this way. I have described them as clarity and intelligibility, and, I would add, the removal of misconceptions. A foreigner, for example, reading our Budget statements would not realise that he would have to make allowance for the amount of nationalised industry in his own country before being able to read the figures intelligibly. If, for example, in his country fewer industries were nationalised than in this country, he would realise only after the


matter had been brought to his attention that here we are providing through this statement for the loans to be provided for all the nationalised industry of this country, whereas in his own country those industries, perhaps still being un-nationalised, would get their funds in the market in the ordinary way and the figures would not enter into the budget at all. It is, therefore, helpful for those who wish to read a pure budget statement, a statement of the Consolidated Fund, that the arrangements we propose should be carried out.
I have said that there are several matters which the House might think would be affected by our proposals. I think that it would be helpful if I go through the major ones and explain those which are not affected by what we propose to do. First, security for loans is not affected one iota. Security for loans will, in the first place, be that of a charge on the National Loans Fund, both as regards existing loans which are transferred there and new loans, but there will be recourse to the Consolidated Fund. Therefore, the security of both Funds will be there in support of loans issued both as regards existing and future loans. I therefore think that I am entitled to assert that the security position is completely unaltered.
The next matter which is not affected is borrowing by nationalised industries from the Government. Those arrangements will remain unaltered. So, too, will borrowing by local authorities from the P.W.L.B. Those arrangements again remain unaltered by the Bill. The Local Loans Fund is being wound up by the Bill, but that Fund is in any event a dead letter and does not affect the issue. I repeat that both the nationalised industries' borrowing and local authorities' borrowing from the P.W.L.B. are not affected by the Bill. Nor is the borrowing by local authorities from the market on their own credit. Those arrangements will go on exactly as before and are not affected by any provisions of the Bill.
The rates of Government lending, whether to nationalised industries or to the P.W.L.B., are not affected, although the description given and the definition of the powers of the Government in lending are more precise and clear. The Bill makes it clear that all loans to national-

iced industries and to the P.W.L.B. must be hard loans—I think that is the term which most of us understand—not soft loans. They must be on terms on which the Government themselves could at that time borrow for loans of that duration and they must include a sufficient margin— a very small margin indeed—to cover the cost of issues. The way we do that normally is to raise the rate to the next⅛ per cent. We level it up to the next⅛per cent. That is a very small matter. The loans which will be made will be at the rates prevailing for Government borrowing at that time for loans of that duration.
Those are the major matters which are not affected by the Bill.
Certain matters are altered. One of them, although it is more a matter of form than of substance, is the authority for the limits of borrowing from the P.W.L.B. For the last two or three years the range of local authority borrowing has been at the rate of something approaching, or even in excess of, £600 million a year. That has meant that we have had to have a new P.W.L.B. Act every year.
It is proper, of course—indeed, essential—that the House should debate fully loans of this magniture, but the proposal which the Bill contains should serve that purpose very fully indeed. The proposal in the Bill is that Parliament should fix an initial limit of £1,000 million in the Bill itself and that power should be given to the Treasury to increase that three times by not more than £1,000 million each time.
Each such extention will be the subject of a Statutory Instrument which will be debated on an affirmative Resolution and the House, therefore, will have the same facility for debating this matter as normally takes place on the Second Reading of the Bill to increase the facilities of the P.W.L.B. I say "the Second Reading" because the practice has been that although these matters have been discussed fairly fully on Second Reading, the Committee stage has generally been absolutely formal. Therefore, I believe I am accurate in saying that we are not proposing under this system to withdraw from the House any of its powers for the proper examination of the additional amounts of these loans.
The second matter which is altered, and again is a matter of form rather than of substance, is the matter of dealing with the profits of the Issue Department. As the House is aware, the Bank of England holds Government securities as backing for notes issued. It has been the practice since 1939, I believe, for the surplus, which is described in the Statute as the profits—that is to say, the income from the Government securities, less the cost of issue—to be transferred to the Exchequer Equalisation Account. But, in fact, that is a comparatively new thing. As I say, it was introduced in 1939 and the Bill proposes a reversion to the system which, in effect, applied before that. It will obviously be recognised that the interest on these Government securities, in fact, comes from what will now be the National Loans Fund, and it is only sensible, therefore, that the profits of this Department should go back to that Fund. That is what the Bill proposes.
There is a further alteration which is a little more a matter of substance, and that is in connection with overseas lending and subscriptions to certain international organisations. The proposal in the Bill is that these, to the extent that they are paid out of the Consolidated Fund at the moment, should be transferred from the Consolidated Fund to votes. If I may remind the House, the position at the moment is that a good deal of the overseas aid programme comes on votes, but not the whole of it. Part of it comes out of the Consolidated Fund, being lending.
This lending would, under the proposals in the Bill, unless we made any other suggestion, go to the new National Loans Fund but, as I have already indicated, it is essential that that Fund, if it is to deal truly with the position of the Government as an intermediary in borrowing and lending, should not contain any subsidy element. Therefore, the loan should not be soft to any extent. Any subsidy element is, in fact, a contribution, an expense which the Government incur if they lend at less than they borrow. It is essential that the House should appreciate this and that the figures should reflect it every year.
Accordingly, it would not be right that loans made to an organisation, which are

partly hard and partly soft as in the case of overseas lending where aid is concerned, should be paid out of the National Loans Fund. They will, therefore, be paid on votes. This will have the added and major advantage that the House will be able to see at one glance the extent of the overseas aid programme which is at the moment divided between the Consolidated Fund and the votes.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger: My right hon. Friend will know from his professional experience that loans are only one part of the balance sheet. Therefore, foreign investors in particular—some might even say speculators—at times will want to see the relationship between loans and assets so far as nationalised industries are concerned. In the case of the Colonial Development Corporation, investors can see how we are doing in lending money to certain undertakings overseas.
I am wondering whether my right hon. Friend has any proposals relating to nationalised undertakings which, at the same time as providing information for the House and others about the amount of the loans, can also provide in the form of a balance sheet the probable valuation of the assets?

Mr. Diamond: I take my right hon. Friend's point fully. The new National Loans Fund will show loans which, so far as one can tell, are good loans and. therefore, worth their face value. There will, of course, be what is normally described as the dead weight of the national debt, but the interest on that will be serviced by the Consolidated Fund and transferred to the National Loans Fund. It is the intention, as I have made clear, that the loans made by the National Loans Fund should be hard loans, and indeed, as I should have added, in the case of local loans we are winding up the Local Loans Fund but the bad debts on that Fund are not being transferred, so as to avoid the very predicament to which my right hon. Friend has referred. As I say, they should be good loans, hard assets.
Whether for all time one can control the situation is beyond anybody's capacity to say. If one wants to look at the whole story, just as much as with the C.D.C. one looks at the bodies which receive assistance from the C.D.C., so in this case if one wants a consolidated


view one would have to look at the balance sheets of the nationalised industries themselves and see the loans which they borrowed in this way and which are shown as loans in the National Loans Fund, to see the assets which represent those loans in the balance sheets of the nationalised industries. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention because it show that he follows clearly the point that I am making about the alterations provided by the Bill.
There is only one further alteration to which I need refer and that relates to the Treasury's borrowing powers. Here again, it is a matter more of form than of substance, but it is perhaps important form. The Treasury's borrowing powers are re-defined in the following way. All the receipts which are to go into the National Loans Fund are defined in the Bill. So it is Parliament which is saying which receipt shall go into this Fund. All the issues out of this Fund will be defined by statute in every case. It is Parliament which is saying both what is to go into the Fund and what is to go out of the Fund. Clearly, if Parliament says that more is to go out of the Fund than is to go into it, the Treasury must be able to borrow the difference. Because Parliament controls utterly and wholly the payments into and out of the Fund, it thereby controls the Treasury borrowing powers.
But it does not have to refer to them on each occasion. The Bill will give power to the Treasury to borrow the excess, but that Treasury borrowing is absolutely controlled by Parliament. An excess is the difference between two items. If one controls each of the two items, one automatically controls the difference between them.
I hope that I have explained the main purposes of the Bill. It could have dealt with matters of substance, but it has not done so very much for the reasons which I have explained. The present arrangements are good arrangements, but the present accounting procedures are outmoded and outdated and do not give the House the information to which it is entitled. The Bill should improve matters considerably, and I hope, therefore, that it will receive a Second Reading.

4.1 p.m.

Mr. Terence Higgins: The House is grateful to the Chief Secretary

for his clear exposition of the general principles underlying the Bill. I assume from his concluding remarks that the normal privileges which the House enjoys of raising constituency matters on the Consolidated Fund will be in no way impaired under the changes now proposed. Indeed, in the debate on the Motion and Money Resolution governing this Bill we received an assurance from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that this would be so. I assume that I am right in thinking, also, that the exact timetable will in no way be altered by our having on future occasions, if the Bill is passed, a National Loans Fund as well as a Consolidated Fund.
It is fair to say that the right hon. Gentleman's approach has been an accountant's approach, and I well understand that he may expect me to raise matters concerning the economic variables rather than just the accounting concepts. The effect of the Bill is not only to alter some of the institutional set-up in the relationship between the central Government and the nationalised industries, local authorities, the I.M.F., and so on, but also to alter the actual form of the accounts presented to the House, in particular, those presented immediately before the Budget.
I take a slightly less optimistic view of the Government's proposed changes than does the Chief Secretary, and I notice, also, that the Economist, in an article on 4th November last, was a little less optimistic than the right hon. Gentleman. It said:
 The Treasury is going to introduce a National Loans Fund Bill. Its object will apparently be to ensure that Britain's Budget estimates and exchequer accounts—which are presented in a highly misleading form at present—can be presented in a newly misleading form in future.
It is right that the House should give close attention to this matter. We have to consider both the institutional framework and the accounting system which the House employs. The right hon. Gentleman has dealt largely with the Clauses of the Bill, and to some extent he dealt with them chronologically. I shall divide the debate at this stage conceptually rather than chronologically between the institutional relationship of the central Government, the nationalised industries, local authorities and so on and the


accounts themselves. I think that this would be helpful.
My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Hordern), who apologises for not being able to be here at the beginning of the debate, but who hopes to catch the eye of the Chair at a later stage, will concentrate on the local authority side of the question. I shall concentrate, so far as I am able, on the broad context of economic management which the accounts covered under the Bill and under the Consolidated Fund Bill raise for the House itself.
The question of reforming the accounts has a long history. There was a notable White Paper on the subject back in 1963, and in his Budget speech last April the then Chancellor, now the Home Secretary, first unveiled his intentions on the matter. In the debate on the Motion governing the Bill, I quoted what he then said. The right hon. Gentleman went further in the debate on the Gracious Speech and said again that he expected to introduce the Bill. We had our debate on the Money Resolution—I shall return to those briefly in a moment—and now the Bill is before us on Second Reading.
Plainly, the Bill is very much the brain-child of the right hon. Gentleman who is now Home Secretary. It embodies both his virtues and, to some extent, his vices. It represents an endeavour to adopt a commonsense approach and to simplify our accounting procedures while, at the same time, embodying a preoccupation with accounting magnitudes and a tendency to look at the moment rather than to look forward.
I put an appeal to the Treasury at the outset. The Bill is intended to alter the form of accounts which will be presented when we debate the Budget next April. All agree that that Budget will be of crucial importance to the country as a whole, and it would be most unfortunate if the exact purport of the accounts then presented was not immediately clear. I hope, therefore, that, before we reach the Committee stage on this Bill, the Government will place in the Library, perhaps, a pro forma account showing the form in which the accounts will be presented next April.
The Bill does not indicate this clearly. There is no indication of what actual changes in format there will be. There-

fore, if the right hon. Gentleman would put in the Library, or publicise in some other way, the form which the accounts will take when next presented, perhaps using the figures for last year or the year before, the House would have a useful opportunity to familiarise itself with the Government's proposals, and, moreover, we should be enabled to propose such Amendments in Committee as we thought might improve the general approach.
This is not a party political matter, but it is a matter of great importance to the economic management of the country. I do not imagine that my right hon. and hon. Friends—I certainly do not—intend to vote against the Bill today. Nevertheless, we intend to scrutinise it most carefully in Committee.
In many ways, the Bill ties up with the debates we have had on previous occasions, particularly on the economic regulator and the question whether the Government should publish their economic forecasts. It ties up, also—I notice that one or two hon. Members opposite have left the Chamber at the moment, but, no doubt, will return later —with the question of the Letter of Intent which the Government sent to the International Monetary Fund and which we debated last week. That document includes a number of figures which, presumably, will be embodied in the accounts to be prepared under the Bill now before us.
I turn now to the institutional changes to be brought about by the Bill. The real difference which it is proposed to make from the former situation under the Consolidated Fund is that the Consolidated Fund will have hived off from it a National Loans Fund so that the Consolidated Fund will include all the receipts from taxation and the expenditure from that Fund on both current account and capital account. Second, we shall have a National Loans Fund which will have as its source of funds the Government's borrowing, and then, again, the expenditure from that National Loans Fund will include both current account and capital account.
I think that it will be agreed that there is a case for including all the Government's borrowing under one umbrella. On the other hand, it appears from the Bill that that umbrella will leave one or two people out in the wet, so to speak. In


particular, for reasons which remain obscure, lending to the National Film Finance Corporation and Votes under the Military Aircraft (Loans) Act, 1966, are not to be included in this Fund. Perhaps the Government should later indicate why those two items have been excluded.
We were also rather surprised to discover in the Standing Committee which was considering the Trustee Savings Banks Bill last week that the amounts to be advanced to the trustee savings banks for capital expenditure were not to be included in this Bill. So that the House may be aware of how comprehensive the Bill is or is not, I hope that we may have a complete list from the Financial Secretary, rather than a partial one, telling us exactly what borrowing is to be financed by the Government but is not to be included in this Bill, because it is not entirely clear at the moment.
I assume from what the Chief Secretary said that certain nationalised industries, such as British European Airways, will still be required to introduce into the House the kind of borrowing Order which we debated last week. I assume that the accounts will be amalgamated into the National Loans Fund accounts, but that the actual control will be debated stage by stage as before, and that there is no change in the institutional set up.
Next, there is the question of timing of expenditure, which, I think the Chief Secretary will agree, is very important. Two questions arise here, stemming in a way from the debate of 29th November on the Ways and Means Resolution. I questioned what rate of interest would be charged to the various people borrowing from the Government and there seems to be a slight inconsistency in the statement which the Financial Secretary made, as reported in column 550 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 29th November. He seemed to say that the rate of interest which they would be charged was that at which the Government could borrow at any given date; that if the Government could borrow at a low rate that would be nice for the people who would get the money in the end, but that if it was a high rate that was bad luck. But following my intervention he seemed to say that it was the rate which prevailed at the moment when the borrowers borrowed. The two statements can be reconciled only if the two events take place simultaneously.

We are still not entirely clear after the Chief Secretary's speech this afternoon which rate prevails—the rate when the money comes into the Fund or the rate at the moment when the borrower obtains the money from it.

Mr. Diamond: I am sorry if I did not make it clear, for I wanted to make it very clear indeed. Whether that is an accurate record of my hon. Friend's speech I do not know; I was not here at the time. But I want to make it clear that his second reference clarifies the situation completely, and that what I said is absolutely correct, namely, that the terms of the loan must be such that if the Government were borrowing that day—that morning, even—they could borrow on those terms for such a period.

Mr. Higgins: I am most grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's intervention. I am glad to see that he is finally converted, as all progressive accountants are, to the idea of replacement costs rather than historic costs. I was worried about the exact purport of what was said in the debate on 29th November. From an economic point of view, as from an accounting point of view, it is desirable that the going rate should be charged, rather than a historic rate which no longer prevails.
I want to raise two other questions which, in some ways, stem from the point with which I have just dealt. Will any attempt be made to ascertain how much of the outflow from the Consolidated Fund will be on current account and how much will be expended by the people borrowing the money on capital account? We shall no doubt debate today the vexed question of the line, and whether things are above or below it. It has been pointed out many times that this is a vague distinction, depending on whether there are specific or general powers to borrow, and having nothing to do with whether it is a matter of current or capital expenditure.
But from the point of view of economic management we need to ask the Government whether the accounts will show whether the sums borrowed from the Fund are for capital account or current account, and what the likely effect of timing of expenditure on the aggregate demand of the economy will be. Unless I have misunderstood the


exact form of the Bill, which is fairly complicated, that question will be left in obscurity even after the reforms which the Government propose to introduce.
I want to turn now to the broader question of the way in which the accounts are presented to the House. We are agreed that the line has tended to fade into oblivion, although conceptually I think that its residue remains in the present form of accounts, rather like the grin of a Cheshire cat after the cat has disappeared. But the Bill will finally remove even the grin from the face of the Cheshire cat, and we shall lose the above-and-below-the line distinction completely if it becomes an Act.
But we face the problem that the Government are not tackling the matter as comprehensively as some of us feel it needs to be tackled. We appreciate the accounting difficulties. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is necessary to put the figures on a cash basis, but it is not true at present that they are fully on a cash basis, because they include estimates for future expenditure, which implicitly assumes something about the level of money income next year. Therefore, there are some attempts to forecast in the present accounts. The Government should be a bit more ambitious than they have been up to now and cover this point. They have begun to do so even in the accounts which the House now considers.
It is relevant to ask what the present accounts are used for. They are, presumably, used for the House to appraise what is happening to the management of the public sector and the economy as a whole. Presumably, the Government and Parliament are intended to use them, and perhaps even overseas bankers and others may try to employ them as well. The right hon. Gentleman says that we need to do our own arithmetic now and reach our own conclusions. The fact is that it is very difficult, however well or hard one works at one's own arithmetic, to reach a precise conclusion of the economic significance of the accounts when they are presented on Budget day. I shall return to that matter in a moment.
It will be a great deal easier for us to debate if the Government agree to present us with the format of the accounts

to which I referred earlier. I make one specific appeal on the point, which is vital in the present economic situation. It is no good presenting that sort of format unless one includes forward estimates as well. I suspect that the Government have in mind a format which will perhaps eliminate the forward estimates from the National Loan Fund accounts. They would, presumably, still include them for the Consolidated Fund. I hope that they will do as they did before, when we had the whole thing in one Fund, and include a forward estimate in the future figures. It would be grossly irresponsible of the Government not to provide that sort of format before we debate the figures in Committee before the House has had an opportunity to familiarise themselves with them.
I now come to the final point which I think needs to be made initially in the debate, which is that the Government have been singularly reluctant to make any forward forecasts. We have debated this matter many times. The accounts we now get under the present financial statement are the only real forward estimates which the Government make. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer refused last year to reveal all the variables which were the basis of his underlying forecast, and, in particular, he refused to reveal the relationship between money incomes, disposable incomes, consumption, and gross national product, which itself determines money incomes.
Therefore, there are many implicit assumptions behind the financial statement that we now get and the estimates in the financial statement for the future year which are never revealed to the House. This has been emphasised very strongly in successive articles by the Economist, which has been leading something of a crusade in asking the Government to "come clean" about their forward thinking.
Also, we ought to be clear that the accounts are presented in money rather than constant price terms. This implies changes in money incomes, which, again, have not been made explicit in the statement laid before the House. The Chief Secretary is not right in saying that all the figures which have been presented have been on a cash basis. Many have been on a forecast basis, implying other changes. There is a very strong case for


detailing this in future accounts about the borrowing requirements of the Government.
It is this borrowing requirement that reeds to be spelt out in more detail than was done by the Financial Secretary in the debate on the Ways and Means Resolution last week. If we are to ascertain what the aggregate demand in the economy is, we must have it broken down into consumption, investment and Government expenditure and, in turn, Government expenditure must be broken dawn into consumption and investment. I hope that we shall get a better breakdown under the Bill to show how much is current expenditure and how much is capital investment because this is very important.
There is something else which is not spelt out at the moment. I am uncertain whether it will be spelt out in the Bill, but I hope it will be spelt out in future, and that is the relationship between saving and investment. The crucial change in the analysis of our economic affairs was brought about when it was realised that, while it was always true that saving equalled investment after the event or ex-post, whether saving and investment were balanced or not balanced before the event and what the intentions were about this made a crucial difference to the state of the economy.
If savings exceeded investment it would tend to have a deflationary effect. If investment intentions exceeded savings intentions it would have an inflationary effect. But should we be able to estimate from the Government sector the position of saving and investment under the Bill once we have set up the National Loans Fund? This is a point that we should consider very carefully. If the answer is, "No", is it not possible to reform the accounts in some way so that we can determine this?
Finally, we come to the question whether there is a Budget surplus or deficit. In his remarks on 29th November, the Financial Secretary was rather too optimistic over this question. He suggested that at the end of the year we should come to a position where either the National Loans Fund owed something to the Consolidated Fund, or vice versa, and one could easily establish whether the Government had run a sur-

plus or a deficit by working out exactly what the relationship between the two was and whether the Government had borrowed more than they had received in taxation or less.
The question whether the Government are running a surplus or a deficit is crucial to the management of the economy. Clearly, if the Government run a deficit they will have to create assets which will go into the banking system, there will he a credit multiplier effect thus increasing the effective amount of money, and it will have inflationary effects. If they call in assets it will reduce the banks' liquidity position, there will be a multiplier and a reduction in the amount of money in the economy, and it will have a deflationary effect.
But we, as the House of Commons, need to know whether the Government are running a surplus or a deficit. Unless I am very much mistaken it will riot be possible for us to do it at the moment, and it will still not be possible for us to ascertain the real magnitude of this very important concept at budget time even if the idea of the National Loans Fund Bill has been accepted. It is crucial that we should do so. I am not sure that we should not put into the National Loans Fund Account and the Consolidated Fund Account some indication of what a neutral monetary policy would involve. One of the paradoxes of the present system of accounts and the proposed system of accounts is that sometimes what seems to be an inflationary deficit is not on balance inflationary and sometimes what seems to be a deflationary surplus has the opposite effect. In short, the accounts are very misleading. I am not sure that we should not have a datum line, which is what the Government estimate a neutral monetary policy would involve for borrowing.
But the actual borrowing requirement from the National Loans Fund is a very odd concept and does not indicate whether the Government are running an inflationary deficit or a deflationary surplus. This is not a mere academic matter. The concept itself has been very much embodied in the Letter of Intent to the International Monetary Fund, which we debated at considerable length last week. The danger of this is that we get tied up with the idea that what used to be called "the deficit" and is now called


"the borrowing requirement" is something which is meaningful. The Economist says:
 the advantage of the new system will be that the meaningless figure which used to be called the British Treasury's overall budget deficit, and is now called its overall budget borrowing requirement, will henceforth not be called anything at all, so that the size of it will no longer scare foreigners out of their wits.
This was written before the Letter of Intent.
We find in the Letter of Intent that the Government are undertaking to keep down the borrowing requirement to £100 billion. This in itself is a little misleading, because the £ sign would, presumably, imply that the billion would be an English billion rather than an American or a French billion, whereas apparently one would use the billion in that sense only if there was a dollar sign.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Harold Lever): The hon. Gentleman suggested that we had agreed to keep the borrowing down to £100 billion. I should have thought that any Government would have found that a relatively effortless task.

Mr. Higgins: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. I was trying to make the point that the use of the expression "billion" anyway, when preceded by the £ sign, is somewhat misleading. Perhaps we ought to agree later precisely what the significance of the amount means.
The relevant paragraph of the Letter of Intent reads:
 Fiscal policy will continue to play the most important role in making room for the needed improvement in the balance of payments. It is the Government's intention to ensure that the Exchequer's borrowing requirement for the financial year beginning 1st April, 1968, is kept under firm control. So far as can be seen at present, this entails holding down the borrowing requirement to not more than £1 billion"—
Yes, not £100 billion—
 —the appropriateness of which estimate and the measures necessary to ensure that it is achieved will be reviewed with the Managing Director in accordance with the timetable specified in paragraph 9.
If I understand this correctly, it means that a figure somewhat less than a billion will appear in the Government's accounts to be introduced under the Bill. Indeed, if what the right hon. Gentleman said the

other day is correct, the actual amount necessarily allocated between the Consolidated Fund and this Bill will be less than £1 billion.
The crux of the matter is that the figure to appear in the accounts will still be very meaningless if what we want to ascertain is what changes in the monetary supply or what the inflationary or deflationary effects of Government policy are likely to be. It depends on which items are included in the National Loans Fund. If the Government were suddenly to denationalise steel and borrow for the operation by going on to the market, the item would be very dramatic indeed, for example.
I am somewhat mystified as to why the former Chancellor should have felt that this specific figure had any economic significance at all in his Letter of Intent and why it is that apparently we are to perpetuate accounts which continue to be similarly somewhat meaningless figures.
The second point is implicit in paragraph 11 of the Letter of Intent, which uses the expression that
…the growth of the money supply will be less in 1968 than the present estimate for 1967, both absolutely and as a proportion of G.N.P., despite the expected substantial recovery of reserves. It continues to be the Government's policy to meet its own needs for finance as far as possible by the sale of debt to the non-bank public and interest rate policy will be used to this end.
The actual borrowing requirements, on the definition of the Chief Secretary, will depend very much on how far the Fund we are discussing is able to raise the money from non-bank sources. This is a very odd dividing line. In the relevant Clauses, such diverse things as Treasury bills and National Savings Certificates are included in the same package. There is a difference between whether the matter is being financed out of savings coming from the non-bank public or out of the issue of Treasury bills, which has an impact on monetary supply.
What we are arguing is that the revision in the accounts which the Government propose in the Bill will still make the position far from easy and will perpetuate present difficulties in estimating the real Budget deficit or surplus and making them meaningful in economic terms. I am not sure that we should not consider how to improve this matter so that we can have presented to the


House of Commons a series of accounts which, on Budget day and at subsequent stages through the year, would enable us to improve our economic management. The Bill goes some way along that road. It does improve the situation, but we are not satisfied that we could not go a great deal further, provided that the Government are prepared to make their expectations appreciably clearer than at present.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. R. B. Cant: I expected that such a large number of Members would want to speak on this exciting subject that I decided to limit my contribution to two points. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and also with comments made by the hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins). I want to put two points, both of which are within the limits of my competence, not being an accountant or lawyer but a hack economist. They are, first, the setting up of the National Loans Fund within the context of the national incomes accounts and, secondly, and more important, local government finance.
I have a little, although somewhat sentimental, attachment to the terminology "above-the-line" and "below-the-line". Perhaps this is merely a reflection of my age. Perhaps those of us who have talked about above and below the line for many years feel that it should not be cast aside so lightly. But I wonder whether this is really a very radical Bill or just another expression of our rather pragmatic philosophy on this side of the House. We have moved from Gladstone to above and below the line, to 1965 and the Consolidated Fund and the overall borrowing requirement, and now we have reached the dizzy heights of the National Loans Fund. My point is the same as that made by the hon. Member for Worthing—that in this modern age this is not enough.
I do not want to go over many of the points made by the hon. Gentleman. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he has a look, however, at the American approach to Budget presentations. Although we are told by the professors that we not draw too many conclusions or seek too many parallels between our position and that of the United States, nevertheless the Americans' four different presentations—the cash basis, the administrative basis, the national income

account budget and the high employment budget—really give a much more significant interpretation of Government expenditure in the context of the national economy. Although the Bill is a useful interim clearing up operation, we could go a good deal further.
Perhaps I can add a little addendum to this part of my speech and ask my right hon. Friend whether he has considered a public relations exercise in association with this clearing up of the presentation of the national account. I remember reading somewhere a comment by one of the professors associated with the Institute of Economic Affairs, Hobart House. He said, in effect, "If we ask how we can find out what happens in the Budget and how the intelligent man in (lie street can get as full appreciation of the really significant thing about Government revenue, expenditure, and so on, at the Stationery Office, we will be handed an information pamphlet called, ' The British System of Taxation '. If you are obviously an earnest seeker after truth you might be told that all the information is contained in the Financial Statement"
That professor had something rather rude to say about the Financial Statement. He said.
…Financial statement, with its funereal looking title page, unexplained tables of revenue and expenditure, cryptic explanations of tax changes and occasional intriguing but incomprehensible details of such recondite matters as the E.F.T.A. rate on snuff imports containing not more than 13 per cent. moisture.
Since that was written, we have had a significant additional table included in the Financial Statement, but the point is made, especially if we search HANSARD and the Finance Acts. I ask my right hon. Friend to bear this point in mind, because if, once more, we look to the American example, we find that they bring out a 70 to 80 page handout which is full of small print and heavy type and graphs and charts. It is an attempt to give the man in the street some idea of what is contained in the budget, the Government's financial accounts, which, after all, plays a significant part in his life. Not only is this done in Sweden and the Netherlands, but there is a translation into English, perhaps in the hope that the Chief Secretary will read it, and even that home of financial obscurantism.


France, publishes a very similar intelligent man's guide to the Budget accounts.
I wanted mainly to deal with local government finance. Here we have a leg of British Government which, last year, was responsible for spending about £4,500 million, whose expenditure has increased 70 per cent. since 1961, whose borrowing since 1961 has increased 110 per cent. and whose expenditure is 7 per cent. of the gross national product. If hon. Members opposite are horrified by the overall growth of public expenditure, they must be even more so by the growth of local government expenditure, which has been considerably faster.
I have a great deal of sympathy with those who argue that local government finance, particularly capital finance, is on a totally unsatisfactory basis and I say that partly as a consequence of reading books on the subject, but also partly because of having been a member of a city finance committee for some 15 years. From 1946, when local authorities were restricted to access to the Public Works Loan Board, on to 1953, when they were allowed some access to the stock markets, and then on to the critical date in 1956, when local authorities were virtually thrown out of the Budget, we have a history which is such that the city treasurer or the county treasurer brought up on gilt-edged stocks must have felt that the world was almost coming to an end. I have a great deal of sympathy for such people.
But since then there have been further changes. In 1963, it was decided that the amount of money contributed by the P.W.L.B. to capital expenditure—and I emphasise that it is long-term capital expenditure—should grow from 20 per cent. to 50 per cent. by 1968. This arose because of concern with the growth of temporary debt, but, such were the demands of local authorities on the Exchequer that the arrangement has had to be terminated.
When the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants, for example, says in its most recently monthly publication that it is asking the Government to make changes which are urgently needed not only to meet the need to reshape the budgetary presentation of accounts, but to place the finances of local authority capi-

tal expenditure on a rational and stable basis, the Government ought to listen to professionals of this kind. I do not think that the Bill as we now have it meets all the points which they put forward.
The main point, with which one must have considerable sympathy, is that as the agent placing on local authorities the obligations to perform certain tasks, the Government should accept responsibility for providing them with substantially more than 50 per cent. of all and not only the long-term capital required by them. I would not know what "substantial" means, whether "substantially more than 50 per cent." is 70 per cent.
The reasons for this can be briefly stated in this way. Anybody who has had any experience of local authority work must appreciate that planning is an impossibility. On 5th January, I shall be attending a meeting as a member of the Financial Planning Committee of Stoke-on-Trent Corporation. We shall have before us a very large number of projects and, obviously, if we are realists, we will cut down that number substantially. However, the point is that even when a project gets approval there will be no guarantee that the borrowing and financial facilities will be available. There is an air of unreality about local government financial planning.
Local authority finance is almost completely chaotic—not that anybody is about to go bankrupt, or that expenditure is exceeding income, but only in the sense of the sources from which the funds for local authority capital expenditure are derived. The Bank of England Quarterly Review shows that during 1965-66 the amounts coming from the Public Works Loan Board was about half the total and the non-P.W.L.B. amount is quite frightening. The same article attempts to make an analysis of how much of this temporary money is derived from overseas sources and the figure given is about £500 million. We must ask ourselves whether it is satisfactory that the Government should permit a situation in which so much long-term local government expenditure is financed by short-term loans from the Euro-currency markets in London.
I do not want to ride my particular hobby horse again, but although throwing local authorities on the money market


may have vastly improved the financial education of City treasurers and produced a race of financial innovators hardly paralleled elsewhere in the country, an element of volatility has been introduced into local government finance which no Government should permit.

Mr. John Nott: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that three-quarters of the confusion in local authority capital borrowing arises from the fact that there are about 1,500 rural and urban district councils and more than 100 county and county borough councils and that the majority of the present confusion would cease if local government structure were reformed? I should like his comments on that, because I think that this is not so much a financial as a local government structure matter.

Mr. Cant: I cannot agree with that, although I have a great deal of sympathy with it. I hope that the reform of local government will produce many fewer local authorities, whether it is nine or 10 large regions or 30 or 40 city regions remains to be seen. That would make a contribution, but, even so, the larger groupings would find their way into this market where the short-term funds are available, often at great expense. This raises other questions which I will not go into.
If I believed so strongly that the Government should accept responsibility for providing a higher proportion of all capital expenditure than they do, and if I accept the implication of the Letter of Intent that something must be done to decrease the total burden of public expenditure, or the net borrowing requirement, what, as a reasonable man, must one agree by way of relief?
I am not persuaded by any arguments which suggest that the gas and electricity industries should not draw their long-term finance from the market. A definition of a subsidised rate of interest has been given by the Chief Secretary, but I think that in another way we could say that these institutions enjoy a subsidised rate of interest, and I think that they are essentially commercial growth industries which, sooner or later, will have to pay the going rate.
In an article in Lloyds Bank Review, the Chairman of the Electricity Council says that the industry cannot possibly

borrow on the market because it would be unfair to private enterprise and to local authorities. He deals with this question in about 12 lines. That is a totally unsatisfactory situation.
I welcome the Bill as an interim Measure. I hope that the Chief Secretary has made a note of the two points which I have raised—one on my behalf, that we should have a more intelligent presentation of the Budget, and one on behalf of local authorities, that something should be done to help them towards greater rationality and stability in their financing by the Government accepting responsibility for providing them with about 70 per cent. of their total capital requirements.

4.52 p.m.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) has made one of his usual very sensible contributions to these debates. I always listen to him with interest. He comes as a successor to a triumvirate of Members, all of whom were greatly liked on both sides of the House. I feel that he is a worthy successor to them.
I am aware that there is a more glamorous topic for discussion later and, therefore, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not follow him in lamenting the woes and tribulations of borough treasurers, but simply say that I am substantially in agreement with what he said.
We are discussing no less a sum than the transfer of the entire National Debt —£32,000 million. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), I prefer the older and more familiar appellation. This is quite a large sum, especially when one ascertains that on page 1034 of the 68th Edition of Whitaker it is listed under the conglomerated heading of "Homes of Sport". It is important that the Post Office sorting department should be on its mettle in dealing with the N.L.F., because otherwise there must be a danger that the Government of Aden, who are now claiming that £60 million is not an adequate subsidy for their future operations, will find themselves landed with a bill for £32,000 million. Therefore, the Post Office must get its sorting machinery in order.
The Bill follows a pattern which is very familiar to the Chief Secretary as a result of his earlier avocation, in which he distinguished himself so much and to which we all hope he will shortly be able to return and give it added lustre. This is the old situation of a public company in trouble. The first thing which a public company in trouble does is to get a new managing director. The new managing director in this case was sitting on the right of the Chief Secretary earlier; he has now retired. Then it gets a new accounting system—and this is the new accounting system in this case. We have not yet reached phase III, but we shall very soon do so.
It will then be shown by the managing director that there should be some delay in the publication of the accounts. This was a theory laid down by Mr. Nigel Lawson some years ago—that bad figures take longer to add up than good figures. We await the next stage in the postponement of the publication of the accounts. Following that, we have the receivership and the dismissal of the chairman. I tell the Chief Secretary, without any personal feelings, that we are eagerly awaiting that event.
The debate turns on the net borrowing requirement. Here I have a few important points to make. The net borrowing requirement was specifically referred to in the Letter of Intent which we discussed last week. Therefore, it is, presumably, a term of art and a term with meaning. Examining this Bill, there will be contributions to the net borrowing requirement. There will be the nationalised industries, perhaps at £900 million, and the local authorities, perhaps at £600 million, making a total of £1,500 million. Presumably, it will be estimated that £500 million will be generated by those same bodies towards their capital expenditure. However, there is something to put on the other side.
I noticed that neither the Chief Secretary nor my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) referred to Clause 7, which deals with the Exchange Equalisation Account. I want to go into this in a little detail, because the movements on the Exchange Equalisation Account are in exactly the opposite direction to those on the other accounts. The

Account has a borrowing requirement when the £ is strong, and it has to borrow pounds to supply the overseas buyers of pounds who are tendering foreign currency in exchange. On the other hand, when the £ is under pressure, the Exchange Equalisation Account must pay out foreign currency and it takes sterling in. Therefore, one can say that the Account works in exactly the opposite direction to the main principle of our net borrowing requirement.
One can easily foresee a situation in which the net borrowing requirement is kept to £1,000 million, as has been suggested, because the Exchange Equalisation Account was so much in sterling funds. This would be a source not of strength, but of weakness to the economy. However, if we are using the term "net borrowing requirement", because of the way in which the Bill is now couched, it will affect the matter most closely.
That is something which must be brought out in the statement which is to be prepared. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing in hoping that we shall have a pro forma, but, whether we do or not, I do not think that the House will tolerate the fact that this very important figure—the net borrowing requirement—should be diminished simply because sterling is under pressure. The Exchange Equalisation Account has, therefore, been not a borrower but a lender of sterling, and has acquired sterling and, therefore, diminished the net borrowing requirement of the National Loans Fund. I hope that the point is taken.
When I look at the other points in the Bill, I agree that it is a matter of bookkeeping. I was attracted by Schedule 3, on page 30, "Local loans to be extinguished". Peterhead Harbours Trustees are to have £36,826 18s. 10d. extinguished. Wick and Pulteney Harbours Trustees are to have £28,354 10s. 8d. extinguished. I observe that in my own county, Staffordshire, the South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commissioners are to have £40,593 12s. 9d. extinguished. I should be sorry to look at the next edition of this Bill to see the loans extinguished which have been made to the nationalised industries, because I do not think that they would be covered in five, six, seven or even eight figures.
May I draw attention to Clause 21, which states, on audit and accounts, that
the Treasury shall prepare in such form as they may prescribe an account of payments into and out of the Consolidated Fund…".
We must go into that more deeply. If this is simply a cash account, then clearly the actual issues from the National Loans Fund on current account—for the local authorities and nationalised industries—must be clearly shown, and there must he a differentiation of the capital movement, which would also be accounted for, to the Exchange Equalisation Fund, especially as under an earlier Clause the transactions with various international bodies are specifically excluded.
If this is not done we shall be producing just another misleading form of accounts, and doing so at a time when people have lost all confidence in the monthly form of accounts which we produce. Every month we issue a statement of our gold and dollar reserves. Every month we know that that statement is only a partial and fragmentary glimpse of what is going on. When we borrowed £35 million for a year from a Swiss bank, our reserves went up by that amount. But so did our liabilities in the same year—or in this case, to a substantially larger extent. I ask the Chief Secretary, who is an experienced accountant, not to feel that the Treasury can go on pulling the wool over the eyes of everybody who reads the account. We know that there is no real substance in this monthly statement of the gold and dollar reserves, because we know that it does not take into account the liabilities which have been incurred.
I beg the Chief Secretary, most genuinely, to see that this reformed statement for the National Loans Fund escapes from being regarded as an equally misleading document. It should show the net issues and not simply permit the position to be obsecured by allowing a lot of other material in some of it, as in the Exchange Equalisation Account, where it has exactly the opposite meaning to the issues which I have discussed. If not, people will say that no greater reliance can be placed on this statement than on the statement of the gold and foreign exchange reserves, and we must ask who is fooling whom.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. John Nott: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor Goldsmid) on the number of valuable points which he made. He is quite right in saying that the publication of the gold and dollar reserves has increasingly become meaningless and that the Government and the country have nothing to gain from statements of this nature, which everyone throughout the world know to he misleading. I completely agree with him that it is time that this type of practice ceased in the presentation of our national accounts and monthly statements.
There are many other fields where we need a more open society, if I may use that phrase. To quote but one example which has not yet been mentioned in the debate, when the Bank of England issue a loan on behalf of the Government none of us knows how much is taken up by the general public and how much goes straight into the hands of Government Departments, and none of us knows how much is peddled out to the public over a period of time. I refer to tap stock. None of us knows how much of this Government debt is in a floating form, how much is ways and means and how much involves gilt-edged advances. Even in the case of Government borrowing there is a whole host of factors which would throw much light on many activities of the Government which I believe could be made available without much danger to the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) referred to the whole question of the presentation of the accounts, and the difference between real and money income forecasts. I entirely agree with him that there is no reason why this aspect of the presentation of our accounts should continue to be kept confidential by the Treasury. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) also mentioned the point. We want much more of an open society, so that the people can judge what is the true position. It deceives no one overseas and it does not help the country for all these important facts and figures to be undisclosed. The hon. Member said that these figures are made available to a large extent in the United States, and until Treasury and Bank of England secrecy ceases in this country, we shall not have


the national accounts in the way in which most hon. Members would like them to be produced.
I had not intended to take part in the debate, because I do not begin to understand a large part of the Bill, but I am provoked into saying a few words by the comments of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central about local authority borrowing. We have discussed this in the House before. I do not agree with anything that he said, although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South that the hon. Member makes a valuable contribution to our debates and that we always listen to him with the greatest of interest. For a few moments I want to answer some of the points which he made about local authority borrowing.
I agree with him that at present there is a great deal of confusion in capital borrowing, but I emphasise a point which I made in an interjection—that if the local government structure is reformed and we come down to a system in which there are 30 or 40 first-tier local authorities, and only those first-tier authorities have the power to borrow in the market, then at least two-thirds of the confusion will cease. Most of the confusion arises as a result of the fact that there are over 1,500 small non-county boroughs, rural and urban district councils fighting one another in the market for funds, which, clearly, makes no sense. Over 100 counties and county boroughs in the country are also fighting one another in the market for funds.
If we have a reform of local government structure which gives some kind of independence to Scotland and Wales—why should they not have it if they want it?—and similarly we come down from 100 counties and county boroughs and 1,500 smaller authorities in England to a system in which there are 40 first-tier units who are borrowing, we shall have a much clearer position.
I do not like the hon. Member's suggestion, because it strikes at the root of local government independence. If we force local authorities into the P.W.L.B. for funds we remove from them the whole of their independence. Local government independence is something which we should encourage. It is absolutely crucial to

local democracy. I do not believe that it can be maintained if local authorities are forced back 100 per cent. into the P.W.L.B. I foresee a time when local government has been reformed and we have 40 units borrowing in the open market. That will make a great improvement in the whole of the arrangements.

Mr. Cant: May I correct one point? I was not suggesting that money should be obtained from the P.W.L.B., but merely trying to interpret the recommendation of the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants that a substantially greater proportion than 50 per cent.—I said 70 per cent—should be so borrowed. The Institute says that in the interest of local democracy 30 per cent. is something local authorities should scratch for themselves. I think that this is a compromise.

Mr. Nott: The report to which the hon. Member refers, speaking from memory, is the report of a sub-committee set up by the I.M.T.A. to consider the problem and it does not represent the I.M.T.A.'s views as a body. I think that 10 people produced the report. I do not agree with a single word of it. Those Treasurers I have spoken to do not agree with it either.
There is also room for the development of regional loan bureaux so that when we have a lesser number of local authorities, say 40, borrowing in the market, those which have a surplus at the end of the week or the month through the bureaux could help local authorities which have a deficit at the end of the week or month. In the North, there is a bureau which operates from Manchester. It has provided a very great service. These bureaux are doing this work as a co-operative and they save local authorities having to pay commissions in the City. That makes the treasurers very happy and I am all in favour of it. There is great room for the development of regional loan bureaux, I should like to see them encouraged and superimposed on the new structure of local government which I foresee coming about.
There is another reform I should like to see, which also would improve the unruly situation which exists. That is for local authorities to try to rationalise the way in which they are allowed to borrow under present legislation. There


is no reason why local authority borrowing should not come down, first, to a deposit receipt to cover all borrowing tip to one year, the issue of a bond for one to five years and the issue of stock for over five years.
Some local authorities are using mortgages which involve the mayor putting on his robes and sealing a document. That is out of date. Local authorities should bring their methods up to date within the context of existing legislation. Then we could have three types of borrowing instrument. It is largely the fault of the local authorities and not of the Government that they do not bring themselves up to date in this way.
I am in favour of bringing local authorities much more within the main borrowing market. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central rightly referred to the dangers of £500 million short-term money being deposited from overseas through United Kingdom banks aid then being lent in the local authority market. There are great dangers in this. It led to the previous White Paper and the reorganisation of local authority borrowing. If the Government and the Treasury attempted to bring these deposits into the discount market over which the Bank of England has great control as a result of open market operations, this problem would be avoided.
The reason we have so much confusion and danger now is that local authorities are operating in their own money market over which the Bank of England has no control at all. If more of this temporary borrowing and more of this mortgage borrowing could be brought into the main discount market over which the Bank of England has the closest control, some of these problems could be overcome. They could be overcome by encouraging local authorities to issue more bonds which could be placed on the discount market.
It could also happen by helping local authorities to issue more bills. At the moment, bills can be issued by local authorities only if they have their own Private Acts of Parliament. Then they are allowed to issue bills through the discount market, as Manchester has done. Otherwise local authorities are not allowed to issue bills. Enabling legislation which would allow all local auth-

orities to issue a certain amount of temporary money through bills would bring a lot of short-term borrowing into the discount market which at present is outside that market.
I accept as valid the Treasury argument that if this is brought into the discount market and local authorities are allowed to issue three-month bills instead of three-month money, the credit base would be expanded. The Treasury argument is that this must not be done, because it would be inflationary. That is a valid argument which cannot be denied. One has to put on one side the dangers of having hot money coming in from overseas through the banks into a market over which the Government have very little control against the disadvantages of bringing them into the London discount market where the bills have an inflationary effect, but over which the Bank of England has the closest and minutest control. I should favour the latter.
Likewise with the bonds. If local authority bonds which are now issued on the discount market were made eligible security at the Bank of England in the same way as Government bonds are, that would immediately give an enormous boost to the market and enable local authorities to borrow much more cheaply. Until three years ago the Treasury held out against any development in this field, but it has grown from nothing to £300 million in three years.
If the Treasury is prepared to change in that way and to see a type of borrowing go from nothing to £300 million in three years, and to admit that it has not caused much concern, it should be prepared to open that market even more and to expand it. It can be expanded at present only by making local authority bonds negotiable at the Bank of England. Again I see the difficulties about extending the credit base, but this is an experiment which could be tried.
I make those points in answer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central. I do not know whether they are actually, relevant to the Bill, but in Committee an important matter for discussion will be the whole question of local government borrowing, which forms a huge slice of government borrowing as a whole. I would not like to see a loss of local government independence in any attempt to


force local authorities into the P.W.L.B. Let us revise the structure of local government and reform the methods by which local authorities borrow. That would overcome the problem.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I shall be touching on the problem which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) dealt with so effectively, but I should like first to say a few words about another aspect of the Bill. Before doing so, however, I should like to join my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) in regretting the title—National Loans Fund. I think it reminds us all too closely of recent events in the Middle East, to entitle it "N.L.F." Indeed, I was wondering whether above the line expenditure in future is to be known as "Flosy".
This is technically a Bill for what the Minister of Power the other day called shrivelled bookkeepers. I am very glad indeed it has been widened by previous speakers to take in all the transactions which the accounts will represent. I very much hope that it will be possible to see in the accounts presented to us in future exactly whether they take a deflationary course or an inflationary course.
When I read the 1965–66 Financial Statement I saw there an item called "Floating debt net, £409 million" and another item for interest-free notes, £680 million. These seemed to make the figures add up to £1,000 million, and I wondered just how the experts understand the national accounts, let alone novices like myself. I could not wonder that it resulted in an inflationary situation at that time, from which we had later to suffer very much indeed.
In deflationary times, such as, I think, the present time, a large Government surplus is put into the Consolidated Fund to facilitate Government lending. This, I hope, will be very clearly shown, because at the present time it is growing to very alarming proportions. I think I am right in saying that the percentage of gross national product which has been invested has been running at about 19 per cent. to 20 per cent. for a number of years, and of that saving has averaged

about 16½ per cent., leaving a shortfall in investment to be made up by taxation of 2½ per cent. That 2½ per cent. has jumped this year to 4 per cent. and we are this year being currently taxed to the extent of £1,132 million in order to make up the gap between investment and saving as a nation. This is an enormous sum of money. If this is to be so in the future it must be clearly shown.
Added to that, we have the alarming situation that we as a country are investing far too little. I think we are investing some 20 per cent. to 21 per cent., as I said, while Sweden is investing 32·8 per cent. Wherever we look at comparable industrial countries we find that by comparison ours is an inadequate investment. So we shall, if we attempt to match that investment, have ever greater need to increase taxation to make up the shortfall between investment and savings.
We have the ridiculous situation where we are severely hitting the saver and investor by every form of taxation we can think of—Selective Employment Tax. Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax. Income Tax, so making it less profitable to save, and at the same time we have had to continue to subsidise investment in the nationalised industries through the Public Works Loan Board, and further subsidise new investment by means of investment grants.
If the country is short of tomatoes it is a strange way of going about it to make life particularly difficult for the tomato growers so that they tend to go out of business, and, at the same time, subsidise the consumption of tomatoes by subsidising the retail price so that the demand for them increases. If we do this we get a growing gap between supply and demand for tomatoes—which is what we are now witnessing. If the National Loans Fund does nothing more than bring out the very great danger of a situation such as this I think it will have been very well worth while. While this is so the one thing we can do to improve the situation is to take fiscal measures, but it would be wrong of me to go into that now.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) wanted greater recourse to the Public Works Loan Board. It will be necessary unless something can be done to bring more money on to the market


generally by saving and investment. I have a great desire to see the nationalised industries go to the market for their capital. It is an enormous sum, £800 million or £900 million, which we are lending them from the Fund, and that is a very severe burden indeed, but I do not believe we can get local authorities or nationalised industries to go to the market till funds are available for them to borrow—an extra amount of something like:l0 per cent. to 40 per cent., if they were to go at present for all the money which they are borrowing.
I therefore think that the first thing to do at that stage is to equate the amount of savings and the amount of investment which is available. I hope that we shall do this, so that we can gradually push back on to the market all those classes of public or semi-public borrowers who are at present getting substantial dollops of taxpayers' money from the National Loans Fund.
It is necessary to do all we can, before we can send them to the market, to make sure that they are also borrowers of equal weight and strength and importance to other borrowers. It would be quite ridiculous to send the electricity industry just as it is to the market even if the funds were available—I am quite sure they are not—for the £300 million it is taking a year. I say that because the industry is so much bigger and stronger, and is a sort of monopoly, so that it could be guaranteed to obtain the funds it wanted at the expense of millions of private concerns which would find they would have to pay more, if, indeed, they could get what they wanted at all, for the capital they need. So I believe we have got to redress the imbalances in shape which some of the nationalised industries have, before this becomes possible.
My disappointment about this Bill is that it neither looks to the time when we shall tackle shortage of funds nor to the time when we shall tackle the imbalances of size and shape of the nationalised industries. It prevents this very desirable course from being possible.

Mr. J. T. Price: I am very interested in this. I myself have made to the House on a number of occasions small contributions on the same theme of the need to consider, at least, whether the nationalised industries should

use the market more than they do. What at the moment interests me is that the hon. Gentleman said they would be an unnecessary handicap to private concerns; they would be so strong in competition they would be sort of swamping the market. What sort of restriction has the hon. Gentleman in mind for placing on nationalised industries when they seek a share of the capital sums available?

Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the chance perhaps to make clearer what, perhaps, I did not say clearly enough the first time.
If we add to the market something like 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. of extra demand for funds, which is what the nationalised industries represent—it depends, of course, on circumstances from year to year—and those funds are not available, there is the effect of creating an enormous shortage of savings to match investments which are being made. Of course, this is an impossible operation to do overnight. That is why I say we must first of all have policies gradually to increase the supply of savings to meet the needs of the market. Secondly, having achieved a balance, the effect will be that a very large borrower like the electricity industry, which can always put up prices or give a sort of semi-Government guarantee, and which will pay the interest rate and will not welsh on its obligations, will be able to get its money at the expense of people who have not that great financial strength.

Mr. J. T. Price: To round off this point, is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in making that proposition, he is flying in the face of the experience of other European countries and that about 90 per cent. of the capital needed for the indirectly nationalised industries in Italy is raised on the open market very quickly and without any complaint from the private sector?

Mr. Ridley: I do not doubt that, but the various companies go to the market as quite small units and borrow £5 million, £10 million or £20 million. It is a different matter to go to the market and borrow £284 million, as the electricity industry has, £288 million, as the Coal Board has, and £133 million, as the gas industry has. Figures of that magnitude probably would be too much at


present, until the funds are there to meet them.

Mr. Nott: Could my hon. Friend clarify this point? At the moment, the electricity industry, the Coal Board and the other nationalised industries borrow on the market only in the sense that the Government borrow on their behalf. Is not the distinction that we are financing them more out of taxation? If the electricity industry was to borrow on the market and its borrowing was underwritten by the Bank of England, would the availability of funds be any different from the situation where the industry borrowed from the Bank of England, which issued Government Treasury bills, gilt edge and other stock? I would be interested to hear his comments.

Mr. Ridley: There is no difference between allowing the nationalised industries to borrow on Government guarantee and issuing Government stock, as happens at present. So long as we have the Government guarantee, it has to be done in that way. If the nationalised industries are made sufficiently independent and right as to size and shape, however, there is no need for a Government guarantee and they can borrow on their own credit. The perfect example of this is British Petroleum. To all intents and purposes, it is a nationalised concern, but no one attempts to interfere with it or tell it how to borrow. It goes to the market like everyone else and borrows in a perfectly rational way.
In these more difficult financial times, the Government surplus has grown from £400 million a few years ago, through £900 million last year to about £1,200 million this year. Because of the shortfall in investment, the money can only be used by the Government either to give to local authorities or to give to the nationalised industries—

Mr. J. T. Price: "Lend", not "give".

Mr. Ridley: I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction. But the Government are not borrowing on the market the money which they are lending. They are taxing people to the extent of £1,200 million extra to lend to the nationalised industries. Therefore, we are not replacing lending with lending, but taxation with lending, and that is why it is not possible to perform this operation at pre-

sent. I hope that that will not be used by the Government as an excuse to pretend that all is well when there is this shortfall in the country's savings.
I hope that these acounts will show the actual drawings of the nationalised industries at quite frequent intervals. At the end of each year, we get a statement of what the borrowing of each industry have been, but that is not enough. Last week, for example, suddenly we had the Coal Board asking for another £200 million as if it was a 2½d. stamp. We need to know the amounts that they have drawn against their borrowing entitlements. I hope that the Treasury will think of some way whereby it can become public knowledge how much they are taking up of their borrowing entitlements and at what times they do it, so that the country can be fully informed of the demands coming on the N.L.F. from this source. It is not by intention to delay the House for very much longer, but I should like to ask one or two questions about paragraph 10 in the letter of intent which the Chancellor sent to the Managing Director of the I.M.F. He has undertaken to keep the borrowing requirement down to £1 billion. I cannot quite make out exactly what the borrowing requirement was last year as defined in that letter. It is given as
 the Exchequer borrowing and special transactions ".
The figure was £287 million after the Budget changes. On the other hand, we lent £1,334 million to industry and to the local authorities. Is the right hon. Gentleman treating the special transactions as being separate from the borrowing requirement, or are the two together the £1,000 million which we must not exceed? I am not clear what it means.
It is certain that we have never touched the £1,000 million in the past, if it means the net borrowing and special transactions together. I hope that the Financial Secretary will explain what it means when he comes to wind up the debate. It is not clear what the net borrowing requirement was at the time of the last Budget, and it will help us to understand the exact meaning of the commitment into which we have entered with regard to our creditors.
Finally, I make one small suggestion, and it is that greater latitude should be given to the National Loans Fund in


respect of loans which it makes to various industries and bodies. At the moment, these loans tend to be on fixed terms of years at the current rate of interest. But I do not see why there should not be a number of alternatives on offer to those who would like to borrow. For instance, for long-term investments lasting up to 100 years, such as hydro plant, it might be appropriate to borrow over that sort of period. For short-term investments, in which one might include some aircraft, there could be short-term loans available, in which case higher rates of interest would be required.
It would help the nationalised industries if there was some flexibility in the types of loans on offer, and it would be possible to introduce the rather gimmicky ideas which they have in foreign countries, such as the French loans which the E.D.F. issue and which go up in value in accordance with the growth of electricity sales. There are several stocks of this sort of which hon. Members will be aware. I do not say that they are necessarily right for our present situation, but, while there is not a market and while the nationalised industries cannot shop round to produce the cheapest loans, there is a lot to be said for the Treasury, through the National Loans Fund, to try and give them some alternatives so that they (an borrow for periods and at rates of interest which they think suit them best in an effort to bring them into an even more commercial atmosphere than they have at the moment.
With those few comments, I welcome the Bill so far as it goes. But I agree with my hon. Friends that it does not go nearly far enough, and I hope that we shall be able to improve it in Committee.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. Peter Hordern: This has been an intimate, not to say rather esoteric, debate, but none the worse for that.
We listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant), who, as usual, is very well informed about local authority finance. We also had the great pleasure of listening to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), whose knowledge of local authority finances is even more admirable, if that

is possible, than that of the hon. Gentleman opposite.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walsaid, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) put one or two pertient points about the exchange equalisation account, which I hope the Chief Secretary will comment upon during the course of his remarks. He made the very important point, not only in relation to this Bill, which has a much better effect on our national accounting system, but generally, why not publish in much more detailed form and be far more truthful about the Government's own statement of financial affairs? He referred to the publication of the gold and foreign exchange reserve figures which are published each month. It really is about time that these figures were published, and published truthfully. If ever there was a time to publish them, truthfully it is now, after devaluation. If this is not the time to do it, I do not know when is. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, which was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives.
Any Bill which has the effect of transferring the whole of the National Debt and which is designed "generally to make provision for the management of the Government's financial business", which are the words of the Ways and Means Resolution, is clearly no small creature. Yet it is not quite such a whale as it looks and is in fact a rather modest step forward on ground which has been prepared, perhaps somewhat differently, but which has been prepared for a long time.
There was a White Paper in 1963, called "Reform of the Exchequer Accounts", which described how our present Exchequer accounts date from the Sinking Fund Act of 1875, when the aim was to produce enough revenue to cover expenditure and, if possible, to reduce the National Debt. In fact it was still possible for Chancellors to include proposals for the reduction of the National Debt until just before the first war—certainly up to 1908—but since then Chancellors seem to have had many other priorities.
However, the present form of Exchequer Accounts is still, by and large, determined by the distinction drawn in section 4 of the Sinking Fund Act 1875, between expenditure which can specifically


be met from borrowing and all other expenditure. This distinction is not concerned with the fact that during the financial year issues from the Consolidated Fund may be, and are, met from temporary borrowing, or that the Government has no specific powers to borrow to meet more than a small part of its own direct capital expenditure.
So the Exchequer Accounts, which are divided above the line and below the line, and which were changed only in 1965, I think, are objectionable primarily because people think that it is devised to distinguish between current and capital accounts, whereas in fact it does no such thing. Nor is it possible to claim that the Exchequer Accounts in any way reflect what is generally conceded to be the Chancellor's right to manage demand by deliberately adjusting his net borrowing requirements between fairly wide limits That is not in dispute. There is an overwhelming case, therefore, in favour of altering the Exchequer accounts so that they are at least intelligible in the circumstances of our time.
The Economist, commenting on this new Bill on 4th November, said that:
 the advantage will be that the meaningless figure which used to be called the Treasury's overall budget deficit, and is now called its overall borrowing requirement, will henceforth not be called anything at all, so that the size of it will no longer scare foreigners out of their wits.
Fortunately this is not the purpose of this Bill, because, if it were, it would show a lamentable ignorance of the expertise of the gnomes, who are, quite rightly, much more concerned about the size and growth of public expenditure as a whole and of the public sector as a proportion of the gross national product. The question, therefore, is: what precise form should this reform take?
The 1963 White Paper said:
 No useful economic or financial function would be served by dividing up Government expenditure into one category which had to be met from revenue and another which had to be met by borrowing …
It is suggested that the natural division is between the transactions leading up to the net financial requirement, on the one hand, and the transactions showing how the requirement is met, on the other. The former, it is suggested, might be called the Budget account and the latter the

Financing account. The new Budget account would, therefore, show the progress of Exchequer receipts and issues under headings which correspond to the way in which taxes and expenditure have been authorised by Parliament. It would also show the effect of budgetary transactions on the cash position of the Exchequer, which is of cardinal Importance for debt management and monetary policy.
We would like to know how the Government see the new accounts being presented. Are these recommendations to be carried out? So far as I can see, the Government do not intend to go anything like so far as these recommendations, but it would be helpful to the House to have in precise form how they see their new accounts. We gained some clue from the Financial Secretary in the Ways and Means Resolution when he said,
…from now on the Exchequer accounts will simply show what the Government have received in taxation and what they have spent on both capital and current account"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1967; Vol. 755, c. 549.]
The National Loans Fund then simply plays the role of residuary legatee or bank of last resort so far as the Exchequer accounts are concerned.
I have only one point to add to the effective presentation of the accounts, and that is to ask whether the Government propose to adopt the recommendation of the Radcliffe Report, that the Exchequer accounts and local authority accounts should be published quarterly. I hope that they will do so. In any case, it is the duty of the Government to publish the Exchequer accounts in their new form as early as possible, and we trust that this will be done.
There was one further point raised concerning Clause 21(3) of the Bill, which says:
 For each such financial year the Treasury shall also prepare in such form as they may determine…
We on this side of the House find this unsatisfactory. The form in which these statements are to be made should be predetermined and known by the House; not a form which the Treasury may think up at its own pleasure.
I come now to the National Loans Fund. It would be quite wrong to imagine that the sole task of the Fund


is to act as the lender of last resort to the Government. As I see it, its main function will be to act as the repository of our National Debt and the effective means by which the Government's monetary policy can be carried out. But it will also have a further obligation. I refer particularly to the financing of the Public Works Loan Board, referred to by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central. The Public Works Loan Board has a long and rather confused history, particularly in recent years, in regard to calls upon its resources.
Under Clauses 3 and 4 of this Bill, both the method and the amount of the Fund to be made available to the Public Works Loan Board are to be changed, and I thank these need to be looked at very carefully.
Under Clause 3(8) the Local Loans Fund is to be wound up as from 1st April, 1968. That is the difference in form. Under sub-paragraph (11) we find that the loans that the Loan Commissioners may make correspond to the loans made under Section 9 of the Public Works Loan Act, 1875. There is no effective difference, therefore, in the type of loans to be made, but a very distinct difference in both the method and the amount.
Nobody could claim that local authority financing in recent years has been either tidy or desirable in its method. It really is very important to get a sound and sensible policy for local authority financing, and I do not think that that is what we shall be getting under this Bill.
The problem arises because local authority current expenditure and capital requirements never cease to rise very rapidly. The estimate for local authority capital expenditure for 1967–68 is £1,526 million I prefer the old terminology myself—against £1,403 million for 1966–67. These are very large increases in terms of money, and can be compared against an accumulated loan debt of the local authorities of some £12,000 million.

Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I think that my hon. Friend is putting in an extra £1,000 million.

Mr. Hordern: I do not think so, but I will refer to this later. I believe that I am right, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing this out.
It was originally intended in the 1963 White Paper referring to local government finance that up to 50 per cent. of each authority's gross annual long-term borrowing requirements would eventually be met by the Public Works Loan Board and that the increased access should be allowed at the rate of 10 per cent. each year. The rate at which the Public Works Loan Board was lending, which was then 5⅞ per cent., became very favourable when Bank Rate was raised to 7 per cent.
Consequently, the Board lent £535 million in 1965–66 against a Budget estimate of £360 million and £518 million against an estimate of £400 million in 1966–1967. There has also been considerable pressure from local authorities for short term funds. A very efficient market in short loans to local authorities has grown up in the City and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives has a considerable knowledge of these operations.
The trouble is that it has become so efficient that it has attracted large funds from overseas, so much so that the Bank of England has reckoned that a quarter of all temporary borrowing came from overseas. As a result we have had the unfortunate spectacle of hot money supporting long-term local authority capital projects—borrowing short to lend long, the classical route to bankruptcy. Nor does it seem at all likely that this situation will be changed. At the end of May the Government announced new rates for local authority quotas then in line with the rate at which the Government could borrow. Under the Housing Subsidies Act local authorities could get Government subsidies for the difference between 4 per cent. and the rate at which they could borrow for new housing, which was half their total borrowing requirements. Since Bank Rate has been increased to 8 per cent. this provision is likely to prove very expensive indeed. The important consideration with regard to this Bill is whether the existing 34 per cent. quota for local authorities and 44 per cent. for focal authorities in development areas is to be increased.
The present Home Secretary said on 7th November:
 It is my policy, as it was that of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that local authorities should be able to borrow more from the Public Works Loan Board in future


than they have done in the past."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th November, 1967; Vol. 753, c. 866.]
We need to know whether this access is to be increased in order to judge whether the £1,000 million mentioned in Clause 4 with its further three renewals will be adequate. As a general principle it must be desirable for authorities to fund much more of their short-term debts. This will be an additional factor besides the ever-increasing demand for funds.
If the quotas are to be raised to 50 per cent., which seems very desirable, the £4,000 million mentioned in the Bill is likely to last for just a few years. In the past we have been accustomed to having debates on the Public Works Loan Board Bills which attracted many hon. Members interested in local government. I observe that by this Bill the extensions are subject to an Order passed by affirmative Resolution of the House. We shall be certain to have more of these debates. Presumably when these amounts are consumed the Government of the day would have to introduce further Public Works Loan Board Bills, I would like the Financial Secretary to confirm that this is so and that they will be introduced in much the same form as the old ones.
If it is right that in principle local authorities should be able to borrow from the Government on a medium-term basis, it is difficult to see why this should not also apply to their short-term borrowings. The effect of retaining the quota system at 34 per cent. has been to put increasing pressure on the whole of the short market. Local authorities are competing against each other for short loans and interest rates have therefore been forced up. If the purpose embodied in Clause 12 is to have a rational and unified debt management policy, which is very desirable, it seems absurd that this should not also apply to short-term loans.
In its quarterly review of December, 1966 the Bank of England said that if the Exchequer was forced to assume responsbility for local loans, it may not be able to attract enough lending and would therefore have to borrow through the banking system. Presumably this means through issuing Treasury Bills. There has been considerable pressure on the part of local authorities to issue their own

Bills. The objection has always been that they would form part of the banking system's reserve ratio of deposits, and thus be inflationary in their effect. Exactly the same argument can be applied to Treasury Bills, but at least Government Bills could be more easily marketable and therefore cheaper.
The Government are in great difficulties in their financing of local government expenditure and this Bill will do nothing to improve that situation. One day the nettle of local authority financing must be grasped. Nothing could be more ludicrous than to give Government sanction to local authority expenditure and then decline to use Government authority to raise the necessary funds. The only effect is to hamper the Government's own financing power.
During the debate on the Ways and Means Resolution the Financial Secretary was asked some questions about interest rates which would be available to local authorities by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins). I will not go into this in detail because I see that it has been dealt with, but there seems to be a slight anomaly here. The Financial Secretary said of these rates:
 The answer is that they will rise and fall according to the cost to the Government and it is the cost to the Government at the time the loans are made that will be relevant.
In another passage he said:
 If the Government have been prudent and borrowed earlier at a cheaper rate, there is no reason why the cheaper rate should not be available for the customer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1967; Vol. 754, c. 549–550.]
I do not believe that both statements can be true. Perhaps the Financial Secretary can clarify this.
This Bill seems to be a sensible but small improvement in the presentation of our national accounts. It could also lead to improved debt management. We should like to see the accounts presented more often—at least half yearly, not annually. We will need to look at this in detail in Committee, but for the moment we welcome the Bill.

5.57 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Harold Lever): I will do my best to deal with all the points raised by hon. Members. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Hordern) for describing this Measure as a modest step


forward, because the Government are always very modest in whatever they put forward. They are also of a progressive character, as was very fairly conceded. No Government can ask for more than that by way of praise from an Opposition, however fair-minded, and no one can be more fair-minded than the hon. Member.
The hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) can put at rest his fears that the interesting excursions upon which we normally engage on the Consolidated Fund Bill will be disturbed by this Measure. They will not be affected in the smallest degree by these arrangements. Those debates will continue. Their technical relationship with the Consolidated Fund Bill still remains, and hon. Members will have the same wide-ranging discussions that have characterised that Bill on previous occasions.
There will be no alteration of any kind resulting from this. Neither the procedure nor the time-table will be affected. The Bill will include borrowing powers, so that the House has its traditional reasons for ranging widely. The hon. Member was a little more critical of this Bill. We all understand why the hon. Member for Horsham could not be here throughout the debate. It produced that happy flexibility of discussion, and an agreeable contrast between the opening speech made for the Opposition and the Opposition winding-up speech. It may be that the course of the debate had a persuasive or illuminating effect.
At all events, the hon. Member for Worthing quoted incompletely—I am sure not with the intention of misleading —part of the Economist's complaint in connection with the Bill. As I understand the Economist's complaint, what it was really asking for was the publication of national income forecasts at Budget time. That is a completely different question from that now being considered by the House, which is whether we should not have, at the time that the Budget accounts are presented, which is the source material of all other discussion, also a national income forecast.
Many hon. Members have evinced a similar inclination. Perhaps they all read the Economist, or perhaps they have reached the conclusion independently. It is an interesting and not unattractive prospect that we could have this exercise

at Budget time. Obviously I can make no commitment, but I will certainly see that the matter is studied.
I come now to deal with the way in which these accounts will look when they are translated from statute to actual accounts for publication.

Mr. Higgins: I did not intend to quote selectively. I think that on looking at the full quotation the hon. Gentleman will find that I was, if anything, rather generous to him. The quotation goes on, after some other passage, to say this:
…the real reform that is needed in Britain's present disgracefully misleading budget estimates is to let the country know on what forward estimate of money national income the detailed revenue estimates are based, so that people can then analyse how far any eventual shortfall below estimate is due to a deflationary shortfall in national income and how far to an inflationary shortfall in some taxes' yield; the Treasury still does not understand that, so long as it keeps this a state secret, every sophisticated observer at home and abroad will treat its National Loans Fund bill as a bad joke.
The two are completely inter-related: they cannot be separated.

Mr. Lever: I hope that I have not unfairly summarised the Economist's complaint. I am not always absolutely capable of interpreting the journalistic jargon of economic publications, but I read the article to mean that what the Economist wanted was the publication of national income forecasts at the same time as the Budget was published—in this case the National Loans Fund accounts and all the other accounts it is proposed to publish. That is what I said. I do not think that that complaint is anything to do with this legislation.
They are really saying that this legislation can do something to improve the existing presentation of accounts. It does not give us what we would all like to have, namely, a national incomes forecast which would link with these accounts and produce a great deal of comment, information and judgment of a useful kind. That feeling has been echoed by the House today.
I will certainly see that it is looked at. It does not relate to the Bill, which is concerned purely with publication. It is purely a question, not of making forecasts of national income, which is an economic exercise—this is not an economic exercise —but an accountancy exercise. This is a


presentation of source material, rather like a company balance sheet presents the facts of the company's finances, its trading account and its capital account. Thereafter, there can be a chairman's speech putting, perhaps, a more illuminating interpretation upon the figures and expanding the background against which the company is operating. That is a separate question. What we propose in the Bill is to clear up the Government's balance sheet and present it in a more realistic, more intelligent, and less Gladstonian form.
The hon. Members for Worthing and for Horsham would like to see what it will look like. They hope that it will not be left completely to the Treasury's discretion to decide at the last moment and to change it from year to year. There is no such intention. I will ensure that there is a pro forma available which will show the House what exactly these new accounts will look like. I would hope that hon. Members would draw the conclusion that the new accounts are superior to the old accounts and that they are easier to read. The facts are all in the old accounts. We shall get these facts in the new form. I will ensure that the hon. Member for Worthing has a pro forma in his possession. In fact, I should be very surprised if there is not one in his box already. I will see that it is made available to the whole House, and indeed made publicly available. It will certainly be there before we reach the Committee stage.
I come to what has been turned into the vexed question of the nationalised industries' borrowing rate and what I said. I have puzzled over what HANSARD records me as having said. I think that I have found the solution. I hope that it is not slanderous of the reporter who took down what I said. If I am slandering him and if I did actually use the words recorded, I must take the blame myself.
I have come to the conclusion that I did then say what I propose to say now. I will simply repeat what I said then and leave out two "nots" which have been put in. I am now referring to a point raised by the hon. Gentleman who intervened usefully in the debate. I will leave out the two "nots" which quite gratuitously were put in by the HANSARD reporter. What I said was this':

 Without going to the nearest fraction of an interest rate, the Government will lend to a nationalised industry or a local authority at their own cost of borrowing at the time that they are lending—plus certain expenses. If the Government have been prudent and borrowed earlier at a cheaper rate, there is no reason why the cheaper rate 
should be available. One "not" goes out of the window at that point, as hon. Members will see:
 there is no reason why the cheaper rate should be available for the customer. If the Government have borrowed sums of money at a higher rate earlier, there is no reason why the borrower should 
pay the higher rate. Another "not" goes out of the window.
 there is no reason why the borrower should pay the higher rate.
Then the whole thing is quite clear.
I do not know why these two "nots" made their incursion. If it was my fault, I apologise to the House. If it was the reporter's fault, it will not be the first mistake of this kind which has been made in HANSARD reporting, alas. I know their difficulties.
I go on to say this—it is perfectly clear:
 The borrower will in each case pay the going cost at the time of borrowing on the borrowed money.
This is absolutely consistent with what I said. Later, when I was pressed again on this point, I said this:
 The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that when we lend from the National Loans Fund to any of the borrowers, a local authority or the nationalised industry, the loan will have a term on it and the rate of interest fixed will be the rate appropriate for that term at the time of borrowing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1967; Vol. 755, c. 550]
I was perfectly clear in my own mind, and if those two "nots" are eliminated it is clear that that is the position. I hope that the House is now satisfied, and I am sure that that position is the one that the House would wish to be the case.
I am asked what lending of the Government is not to be included in the National Loans Fund. Film finance, alas, does not always come within the description of undoubted fully repayable debt. Hence, that will not be put into the National Loans Fund, which is exclusively where the Government are lending money to absolutely solvent borrowers who, on ordinary going rate terms, may with confidence be expected to repay in full. For


this reason, unhappily, the National Film Finance Corporation borrowing has not qualified at all times.

Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I am amazed that the heavens have not opened and a thunderbolt has not landed on the lion. Gentleman's head whilst he has been describing some of the classes of borrowers who will help themselves from he National Loans Fund as thoroughly solvent in every way. Is he not aware of the vast extent and size of the deficits which are written off annually in respect of some of these loans?

Mr. Lever: It may seem a circular argument, but the nationalised industries, irrespective of their particular deficits from year to year, are thoroughly solvent, because the Government will ensure that their solvency in undoubted. Therefore, nobody expects them to default on these loans. In the longer term, I should have thought that in any event on their own merits all would be well. If it were not so, it would not really matter, because tree Government, among their duties, plainly have a duty to ensure the solvency of the nationalised industries. Therefore, when the Government act as agent of one of the nationalised industries and borrow the money, they have lent it to a perfectly solvent customer, although admittedly, in this somewhat circular way, the ultimate solvency depends upon the lender. This has happened in history before.
The other loans which will be out, apart from trifling matters of a very minor character which are more appropriate for the Committee stage, are loans to development corporations and developing area countries, where the loans are not always made on the absolutely commercial basis that applies in the case of nationalised industry and local authority lending. In those circumstances, it was thought right that the House should see those as voted by the House rather than lent out of the National Loans Fund.
Will there be forward estimates with the National Loans Fund? We now publish shortly before the Budget a White Paper on the Consolidated Fund lending. Something on these lines will continue to be published for the National Loans Fund lending. There will be no reduction in the total information of this kind available in the next accounts to the House. If the hon. Member has the pro forma be-

fore the Committee stage he will probably be satisfied about that point.
The Economist complaint is that it wants details of the national income to be produced in some paper published with the Budget and with these accounts. The complaint, at any rate, widened the debate for hon. Members and enabled them to tender advice on various economic matters not strictly related to the Government's purpose in presenting the Bill, which is strictly an accountancy purpose for clarifying the Government's accounts and not for clarifying the national accounts. These are the Government's accounts dealing with local authorities and other bodies and with the Government's own expenditure and tax raising. Whether the House ought to insist that at the same time the Government should trouble themselves to prepare a full scheme of some kind presenting the national income and the national accounts for economic information is another matter.
I know that this has been a strictly non-party occasion today, but I cannot help noticing that there is nothing like the exchanges between the Government and Opposition Front Benches to produce an impatient perfectionism which is missing in the long years when the capacity to make these interesting changes exists. There is nothing like the Opposition Front Bench to demand a better world when one has not got the obligation of instantly bringing it about. However, this is not a matter that I am complaining about, because it is probably true of both parties.
I think I have dealt with most of the points that were raised by the hon. Member for Worthing. If there are other detailed points which he would like to raise, we shall, no doubt, have ample opportunity to go into them when he is improving the Bill in Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) was keen that we should increase the powers of the local authorities to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board. Of course, he is aware that we are now trying to increase the proportion from 20 per cent. to 50 per cent. This is a very interesting question on which the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) held forth. I can easily see that it is possible to have many points of view about it.


My general point of view follows rather closely that of the hon. Member for Horsham, to whose words I listened with great sympathy.
Where we have a great number of local authorities whose solvency in the end must be guaranteed by the Government, who have varying degrees of expert knowledge and expert advisers, whose requirements are often in small unwieldy sums at inconvenient times, it must be better to try to organise the borrowing of the local authorities at a central point by the Government. The Government thereafter can meet without all the paraphernalia of the market the detailed requirements of the local authorities. They can then provide the local authorities with short-term, medium-term and long-term funds according to their needs and according to which particular brand of economic and financial orthodoxy is in vogue at the Treasury at that particular time.
I know that the classical phrase of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary is often quoted out of context, that borrowing short and lending long is the road to bankruptcy. I am sure that he never intended this to cover all circumstances and all persons, though I have not consulted him on this point. I can only testify, on the evidence of my own eyes, that I have seen many people who have been borrowing short and lending long all their lives, with not bankruptcy as a result but a degree of affluence that would be the envy of almost every hon. Member. When it is done with the correct precautions and on the right basis, it forms the fundamental ratio of banking itself. Every large bank does precisely that, and those who do it in proper circumstances, far from ending up in bankruptcy, end up with a very prosperous business. Those who do it without adequate precautions, whether they be countries or bankers, are liable to end up in considerable embarrassment and difficulty.
For my part, I do not see it as a practical permanent situation where local authorities compete with each other at irregular times for irregular amounts in the market for their differing requirements. It does not seem to me to be to the general public advantage that Todmorden should fight Oswaldtwistle, offering one eight above each other when the

money is there, in order to get the money out of the market. I do not complain that the skilled advisers who advise these authorities do not do their best in these circumstances, but they cannot individually arrange their affairs as satisfactorily as a central borrowing point can. There are, of course, other factors which make it advantageous, one factor being that the Government are a large borrower and thus have a very marketable security. A local authority has to pay a bit more for its borrowing because it has not so marketable a stock, among various reasons.
All sorts of economies may be made by borrowing centrally. It may be asked: if this is the case, why do we not get 100 per cent. of the local authority borrowing arranged in this way, instead of moving up merely to 50 per cent.? The answer is that at this time so sudden a change in procedures would probably produce inconveniences. The movement is in the direction that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central desires. I can assure him that, speaking for myself and not venturing to predict the future, I would suppose the movement in the end will go further than the 50 per cent. as soon as it can conveniently do so, because all logic seems to be in that direction.

Mr. Hordern: The hon. Gentleman is referring to increasing the quotas from 34 per cent. to 50 per cent. for local authorities in respect of the Public Works Loan Board. Can he say when?

Mr. Lever: I am not able to say at the moment. In any case, it is not strictly relevant. I have been tempted away from the strict brief. This is an accountancy Bill and it does not matter for the purpose of the Bill whether we lend at 2 per cent. or 22 per cent. to meet the local authorities' requirements through the National Loans Fund. The House is not deciding at what percentage, if any, local authority borrowing shall go through the Fund. It is deciding that there will be this Fund out of which local authorities can borrow if the Government are minded to lend them the money.
I must not trespass too far because, quite apart from trespassing beyond the rules of order, I might trespass even further and beyond the limits of strict discretion. The hon. Member for Walsall,


South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) raised a very appropriate point when he said that the Exchange Equalisation Account has rather an odd effect. When sterling is weak the Government are receiving large quantities of sterling and reducing their borrowing requirements. When sterling is strong the Government are increasing their borrowing requirements. From the point of view of the issue of presenting the accounts and the true Government borrowing and expenditure position, all this is made clear in the paper, As the hon. Member will see when we come to the pro forma. There will he a neat statement which will show how much has gone to the Equalisation Account and how much has come from the Equalisation Account. With that piece of information, I am sure that the problem raised by the hon. Member will be cleared up.
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) raised a number of problems. He was anxious that we should tailor our offers to the local authorities in accordance with their needs. I shall bear fully in mind all the points that he raised. I think these are questions of debt management and do not relate to the presentation of accounts which is really the main purpose of the Bill. This is not a Bill that pretends to revolutionise our economic management, still less our economic situation. This is a Bill for improving the presentation of our accounts so that he who runs, or does rot run too fast, may read rather better than on the previous occasion. I accept the description of the Bill given by the hon. Member for Horsham, that it is a modest step forward but a useful one. As the hon. Gentleman will discover when we go into Committee and consider detailed matters more closely, it goes a little further than the 1963 White Paper, but that was, perhaps, to be expected from this Government. On the whole, I am grateful to the House for the critical welcome which has been given to this modest step forward.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS PROCEEDINGS (SOUND BROADCASTING EXPERIMENT)

6.20 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): I beg to move,

That this House approves the making of sound recordings of its proceedings for an experimental period for the purpose of providing for Members specimen programmes.

The House will recall that, in the debate on 20th November, 1966, on the question of broadcasting our proceedings, it was decided, by a single vote, not to go forward with a combined experiment in radio and television coverage of our debates, as had been recommended by the Select Committee. That debate was largely about television, but I said in my winding-up speech that the issue of the sound broadcasting of our proceeding was of the greatest importance, and expressed the hope that we should have another look at the sound broadcasting aspect of the question on its merits, not merely its merits for mass communication but its merits from the point of view of historical record, since, surely, a sound version of our proceedings is worth recording and keeping for ourselves, even if we decide not to publish it to the world.

Since that time, we have had the Report of the Select Committee on the televising of proceedings in the House of Lords, and it has been decided that a short television experiment should take place there in February of next year. I am sure that the results of that experiment will prove useful to this House in enabling us to make up our minds on whether we should have a further look at the possibility of televising our own proceedings. This is, however, obviously a matter on which we should proceed very carefully and make absolutely sure that what we do reflects the considered feeling of this House, and after consultation through the usual channels, I do not propose to take any further steps this Session in the matter of television.

This evening, my proposal relates exclusively to sound broadcasting—indeed, only to experimental recordings of our proceedings to be heard by hon. Members and members of the British Broadcasting Corporation recording staff. It would provide no authority for any kind


of public transmission. It would be authority merely to undertake the experiment, which was, I think, recommended by the B.B.C. in the memorandum which it submitted to the Select Committee.

What is proposed is that the B.B.C. should first satisfy itself that the microphone installations in the Chamber are adequate for that purpose and to make any necessary alterations. Then, after its preliminary technical trials, the B.B.C., for a limited period, would provide experimental sound recordings of our proceedings. These would be played back to hon. Members at selected points throughout the Palace. Secondly, from these live recordings, the B.B.C. should devise a short series of edited extracts as examples of what in future might be a sound radio programme illustrative of live quotations from our speeches. These experimental programmes would be played back each night in rooms where hon. Members could listen to them. After sufficient time, say, two or three weeks, the House would, I suggest, be in a position to decide whether it wished some such progamme to be a regular feature of broadcasting.

I emphasise that the recordings which we should hear in the experimental period would be on a closed circuit connected to points within the precincts, though the circuit would also have to be linked to the B.B.C. in Broadcasting House where the specimen programmes would be prepared. I emphasise again that whatever was done would be on an entirely experimental basis, and nothing in the way of a decision about future permanent broadcasting of our proceedings would be taken without coming back to the House for further authority. In other words, the authority for which I am now asking is simply and solely for the experiment under those conditions. There will be no resulting public transmission.

The question of the timing of the experiment is still one for further discussion with the B.B.C. It would, of course, be an experiment for the B.B.C. as well as for us, but I am pretty sure that it will do all it can to ensure that the experiment will be completed well before the end of the present Session so that we may then reflect as a House

and decide what permanent decision should be taken.

Before putting forward these proposals. I consulted both Opposition parties. I think that they share our view that the time is now opportune for this issue to be put before the House.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the cost be borne on public funds through the B.B.C. or through the House?

Mr. Crossman: The cost will certainly be borne on public funds.

Sir Knox Cunningham: But will it be through the B.B.C.? Will it be on the Corporation's account?

Mr. Crossman: I think I am right in saying that it will be on our account. I do not think that we have ever suggested in any of these experiments that we should not bear the cost of them.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Paul Bryan: I thank the Leader of the House for his brief explanation of his proposal for a closed circuit sound broadcasting experiment. I do not complain at his brevity, as the principles of the proposal were fully debated at about this time last year and we have since had the Report of the Select Committee on television in the House of Lords. No one can say that we are short of information on the subject. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would say whether he will wind up this debate, as he did the last one.

Mr. Crossman: Yes, I shall seek to do so. I was deliberately brief because I felt that I might be more useful in answering questions than in repeating matters which are so well known.

Mr. Bryan: The proposal in the Motion debated last year was more ambitious than the one now before us, the question then being whether we should have an experiment in sound broadcasting and television broadcasting as well. When the right hon. Gentleman tried to put his foot into that particular door, he got it fairly severely trodden on, almost as though by a stiletto heel. This time, we have a far more modest proposal. The right hon. Gentleman has put the tip of his toe in the door, and I wish him better luck.
Important as radio is, it is not even half as important, I suggest, as an experiment in television. Should the sound broadcasting of our proceedings ever come to pass, the public audience will be smaller. It will also be narrower, as for the more serious type of programme the audience is composed more largely of older people than is normal. The message is less vivid, too, because as a communicator television is very much more effective than radio.
However, in certain respects, radio has advantages over television in an experiment of this kind. The first advantage is that it is much cheaper. The other experiment would cost us, I believe, About £150,000, or even more. This time the experiment would be far cheaper. I shall be interested to know what it will cost, in fact. Another advantage is that it will not disturb our proceedings, and neither will it disturb our habits, as the other experiment would have done, with the introduction of lighting, cameras and so forth. Moreover, only one organisation will he doing it, which will make matters far simpler than having alternate weeks covered by I.T.A. and the B.B.C. Last time, we were told that we should be tied in our timings, largely because of the racing calendar. We were informed that the outside broadcasting teams had to be free again by the time the flat racing season started. That was something of an impediment, too.
For all these reasons, in particular the matter of cheapness, it should be possible to have a longer experiment, if that were so desired. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of two or three weeks. I should be surprised if we get all the lessons we want in so short a period. On the last occasion, we talked in terms of five to eight weeks, and many of us were not entirely happy about that, but the difficulties of that experiment and the cost of it forced us to accept some such time scale.
In the present experiment proposed, I should prefer no set time to be laid down. I imagine that it would not be too expensive. The Sub-Committee of the Services Committee, which, I take it, will again be in charge, ought to be able to judge how the experiment is going, and I suggest that it ought to be continued so long as useful lessons are being learned, however long that period may be.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the sort of programmes which might be the subject of the experiment. I assume that we all have in mind a live edition of "Today in Parliament". That is the one programme we all know about. But in the course of the experiment they may well find that there are other more interesting ways of presenting our proceedings than a straight imitation of programme. Therefore, I should say let us not hurry.
I expect many lessons to be learned, some of which will have a bearing on the televising of the House. For example, we shall get evidence to guide us on the whole thorny question of editing, which we discussed very fully and inconclusively in the last debate. We came to no conclusion, and the advice of the Leader of the House to us was to spend the next few months considering this unresolved question. We shall have had our minds made up one way or the other when we have seen the success, or lack of it, of editing on radio.
The Leader of the House also emphasised in the last debate that only about 2 per cent. of the words uttered in the House would ever be broadcast. When we hear the radio experiment, that will give us some sense of this proportion, and possibly bring comfort to those who have feared over-exposure of other hon. Members if not of themselves.
I am very much in favour of the Press being allowed to listen to, and comment on, the experiment. The Leader of the House seemed rather to go out of his way to say that only Members of Parliament and staff of the B.B.C. would hear it. Whether he lays that down or not, there is nothing to stop a Member writing in the Press or telling the Press about it. Therefore, I think that the experiment will be reported, and it would be better to take the bull by the horns and invite the Press to make its comments.
Members of the Press will be very good judges of the effect on the public if the broadcasting of our proceedings ever reaches it. They will also be somewhat more diligent in their judgment than we shall be. The Leader of the House may be rather disappointed to see the small numbers of M.P.s who will listen to the various experiments in Westminster Hall, or wherever it may be,


because on the whole we are pretty busy when we are in the Palace of Westminster. It would be worth repeating the broadcasts, in whatever form they take, several times a day and possibly the next day. Presumably it would cost nothing to do so. If they were at regular two-hourly intervals people would know when they were coming and could fit them into their daily programme.
It would be useful if the Leader of the House could keep us up to date with comments on how the experiment is going during the experimental period. Could he give us a slightly broader picture of the general situation on broadcasting the House if the Motion is carried? We hear that it will start in February, but, as he explained, we do not know the length of the experiment.

Mr. Crossman: The House of Lords experiment will start in February. I could not give a date for ours because it will depend on the B.B.C.'s technical examination of the situation.

Mr. Bryan: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that explanation. Will the broadcasting of another place be a long or short experiment? Shall we in this House have an opportunity of seeing its results? Will those broadcasts be relayed into rooms in this House? It would be very valuable if we had the results of our own radio experiment and the results of the experiment in another place at the same time.
In the last debate, on 24th November last year, less than half the House voted on the proposal to have a television experiment. It was rejected by one vote. If it comes to a Division again, I should say that even fewer than half the House will vote. We on this side of the House treat the proposal as a non-party matter. Hon. Members on this side will not have the benefit of advice from our Whips. Speaking personally, I believe that the Motion, although less significant than its predecessor, is important, and I hope that it will be approved by the House.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. J. T. Price: Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will acquit me of inconsistency if I say straight away that I shall oppose the Motion. I am familiar with the technique of the foot in the door, and

I know that my right hon. Friend's very modest presentation of the Motion tonight is a tactical exercise which is expected to pacify and mollify the House.
It would be unkind of me to repeat some of the arguments that many hon. Members on both sides of the House employed when we objected so strongly to the televising of the House 12 months ago. Some of us said that we did not want this place turned into a performing flea pit. Similarly, I have no wish to see the House, with all its great history and traditions, merely becoming an adjunct to the Press and television authorities.
The greatest forces behind the previous attempt to get closed-circuit television cameras into the House came not from hon. Members, not from our constituencies, but from interested people in the television organisations. I was reliably informed, after the attempt had collapsed, much to the surprise and annoyance of my right hon. Friend, that several dispositions made by television authorities in London elsewhere had had to be cancelled. Various appointments had been made of top officials in anticipation that that proposal would go through on the nod.
I think it is true that it was long before the debate on 24th November last year that the House became interested in the matter. Although only a minority of Members voted, the House was very crowded on the night. Many more hon. Members were in the Chamber to hear that fascinating debate than went into the division lobbies. I will take you, Mr. Speaker, and the House generally into my confidence. They did not vote because nobody expected that there would be a Division, least of all my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. He thought that the proposal would go through on the nod, that apart from a few desultory or token words of opposition from various hon. Members it would be nodded through. He was so certain that that would happen that long before the debate arrangements had been made to instal closed-circuit television cameras. When I made enquiries I was told that they were installed as a sort of substitute for the enunciators, which have been working in the House for so long, or an alternative method of informing hon. Members about the business of the House.

Mr. Crossman: The installation of the so-called television enunciators was a completely separate matter, done before I became Leader of the House. It has absolutely nothing to do with the problem of the presentation of our proceedings to the public. I hope that my hon. Friend will not be confused about this. That was entered into as an experiment because of the expense of the old enunciators, in the belief that it was more efficient and cheaper, it has no implications for the televising of our proceedings here.

Mr. J. T. Price: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for what he says. I do not impugn his good faith, and I want to be fair. But it is a remarkable example of the long arm of coincidence that preparatory to that debate, in which the House rightly or wrongly rejected on a free vote a closed-circuit experiment which would have cost about £30,000 a week for a number of weeks—a fantastic bill which the House did not like very much—closed-circuit television cameras were put in. If they were put in, as my right hon. Friend says, instead of the enunciators, it is remarkable that 18 months later the enunciators are still here and the television cameras are working with them in double harness and confusing hon. Members to some degree—

Mr. Crossman: I do not want to debate enunciators. Before I became Leader of the House it was decided that there should be an experiment with enunciators of that type. It was decided that before we committed ourselves for or against television enunciators as a permanent installation we should try them out while we had the old enunciators so that we could compare the two. That had nothing to do with televising our proceedings on the Floor of the House. My hon. Friend is confused over the fact that we have a broadcasting system on the Floor of the House which is used for HANSARD, and that it is conceivable that if we had a radio experiment from the Floor we should not have to duplicate by having another set of things hanging down from the ceiling. That is the only thing that could overlap between broadcasting our proceedings and the problems of other things going on outside the Chamber.

Mr. Price: I am interested in that explanation. Obviously I must accent it.

I will not pursue that line of country, although it is a valid line. We are not so naĩve in this House that we accept everything we are told from official quarters. We have to be a little sceptical and try to confirm whether we are being correctly informed of important developments in the House. That is what we are here for. We are not here as voting tallies always allowing ourselves to be herded into the Lobby when someone decides that a certain line of policy is the one. I am a loyal member of the Labour Party. No one can produce a better record in this House of loyalty to one's party. But I am getting a little tired of being told by experts of what is good for me. I prefer my own opinion sometimes to the expert opinion.
I do not want to make a long speech. I do not want to be rhetorical or use elaborate phrases. I want to put the commonsense point of view of some of my hon. Friends and myself. We say, first, that we have no evidence from our constituencies that the country wants this innovation. We are more likely to hear that too much time is taken up with Parliamentary reporting. Perhaps the kindest thing for some of us in this House is the fact that the House is not more widely reported.
If the Leader of the House is to have any responsibility under the experiment and if the experiment goes beyond experiment and becomes a sort of pipeline to the country, recording the fluent voices of hon. Members in the flesh instead of their merely being reported by somebody in the Press Gallery, I am not sure that the country will be very much attracted by the idea. After all, we have a daily programme on sound radio—" Today in Parliament "—and very rarely do people tell me that some words of wisdom, or otherwise, that I may have uttered in the House have been picked up by the programme. I never hear it, but am told that is so.
That is a strictly edited version. I should be extremely sceptical, with all the knowledge that I have from many years of working in this House, that once the process of editing or, a more unpleasant term, "censorship"—a dirty word in this House—applied to what was said in the House and any kind of equity was shown as between one hon. Member and another, I should require a


great deal of convincing that it was being done either judicially or fairly. I say that for good reason. One knows that the contacts and links that exist between television and radio authorities and certain hon. Members are too close for the health of this House. The House is rather silent at the moment. I do not want any applause or opposition. However, many people are aware that there are little kissing rings of all kinds going on between the publicity authorities and hon. Members. One or two who take part may be present tonight. If they are they will probably speak.
I do not think that it is a good thing for the health of the House if selectivity, which is also a very difficult word for my right hon. Friend in other connotations, is to be applied to editing of the programmes. Before any of my constituents could hear my voice, I imagine I should have to be on better terms than I am at the moment with some members of Her Majesty's Government. That is putting it rather bluntly, but I think there is something in it. That is not because I want anybody to listen to me. I want to be free to say what I believe to he true, whether people listen or not.
A great many things have happened in connection with this House in recent years, in the post-war years in particular, which in my honest opinion have reduced the status of the House in the country, not only in what has been said and done, but in a great deal of the gimmicking and playing up to the Press which has sometimes disfigured our debates in a most undesirable way.
I spoke about the effects of the proposal on the country and said that the country might not like it. If the country wanted it it would have asked for it. I should like to know from the Leader of the House of any evidence that has been presented to our Select Committee or to himself or to any member of the Government to show that the country is stumbling over itself to have our beautiful voices recorded on sound radio. It is perhaps a lesser risk inflicted on the public to have our voices rather than our faces recorded. Here I am speaking for myself. I am not speaking for any clique or cabal. What I say I say temperately, moderately and modestly. I

hope, for myself and I am not stooging for any clique. We all know what goes on in this place. [Interruption.] I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) is most anxious to elaborate on what I am saying if he catches Mr. Speaker's eye, and he can say it on the basis of greater experience than mine and say it in a rather different way.
I wish to convey to the House in general and my right hon. Friend in particular that I am not prepared at this moment, even on an experimental basis, to accept the Motion, first, because I do not think the country wants it, secondly, because I think that if the country got it it would not like it, and thirdly, and finally because—

Mr. E. Shinwell: We have other things to do.

Mr. Price: —this is no time to be playing about with any more gimmicks. The country is facing grave issues of major importance, and I do not think we get any great credit in the country for occupying so much of our Parliamentary time with these matters of the convenience of hon. Members and the procedures of the House when much of it would be better employed and give a greater lead to the country if we were dealing with the major issues confronting us.
Tonight we are witnessing another little move to introduce into the House something that many of us feel in our bones is wrong. It is not being done by a frontal attack. I am sufficiently well versed in the tactics of politics to know that one does not often achieve one's objectives anyway by making a frontal attack. If one is faced with opposition and has had a bump on the nose, one goes round the corner and approaches the objective by a more indirect route. That is what is happening tonight. For the reasons that I have stated I shall feel obliged to oppose the Motion, and I hope that I shall have the support of the House in doing so.

6.50 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I was unable to attend the debate on 24th November last year and this is the first time I have spoken on the question of the broadcasting of proceedings. I am grateful to the hon. Member for


Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) for providing me with yet another term by which to express the public opinion of this House. He said that he did not wish it to become a performing flea pit. There are some who regard the House as a gasworks while others say that Guy Fawkes was the only man of sense about the whole thing. I like to think that we are not just a warehouse of wafflers but that we try to make this a workhouse for wisdom. But I am not sure that we are likely to be the best judges of that.
What worries me about this proposal is the idea that the final decision on whether or not the experiment is a good one which can be conducted on a wider basis is to lie with us. I am inclined to think that the public should be the final arbiters. They send us here and, through their taxation, pay us. Therefore, whatever is the outcome of the experiment and however important it may be that we ourselves should see the early results first, I hope that no final decision will be taken until, when we have done our best with the experiment, the public have had an opportunity of having a say.
But there is one great danger coming out of this. Some hon. Members like to speak in this Chamber whenever they can. Others do not often speak in the Chamber, if at all, and all too often the public has the impression that those hon. Members do no useful work here. Yet we all know that there is an immense amount of work going on in the Palace besides what goes on in this Chamber. I therefore want to pick up with particular relish one point made by the right hon. Gentleman in the debate last year, when he said that Standing Committees would not be overlooked. He was talking in the context of television.
There was the decision of the House in the last Session, and repeated in this one, to establish these new Select Committees—the Select Committee on Science and Technology, in which I am particularly interested, and the Select Committee on Agriculture, which did a useful job in studying preparations in the Ministry of Agriculture towards the Common Market. I am sure that these Committees will have very great public interest—an increasing interest as the years go on. They are distinct from some other Select Committees we have had in

that their proceedings are open to the public anyway.
If we are to make this experiment, then, wherever the Press attends a meeting of a Standing or Select Committee, in fairness to those hon. Members—not least—who do an immense amount of work in these Committees but do not often speak in the Chamber, we should consider making sure that these Committees get a fair share of any recordings made.
I am not worried about the technicalities involved in this. I am sure that the B.B.C. technicians will be able to overcome any difficulties. But some of our best debates will be the hardest to record, because when a debate is showing a certain amount of vigour and hon. Members are perhaps more rowdy than we would think entirely desirable, it will virtually make it impossible for anyone to pick up with a clarity which would be desirable the principle speaker at the time.
Those of us who occasionally occupy the Chair know how difficult it is, when presiding over a Committee of the House, if a large amount of conversation is going on on the Government Front Bench—as is often the case— for even the Chair always to be able to hear what is being said if the hon. Member speaking is below the Gangway and rather far away.
There may be technical difficulties here. It must be ensured that the supporting noises and the opposing noises hon. Members make from time to time in some of the bigger debates do not completely drown the one person who perhaps ought to be recorded and whose remarks are perhaps more interesting than those of some others.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there may be another side to this, in that in these great debates a Member may make a remark Mr. Speaker does not hear but which is very audible to the public at large?

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: That is a legitimate point. There are occasions when asides become the principal observation because a microphone happens to have picked them up, and occasionally it would have been much better if those asides had not been uttered. But I take the point. However, I am sure that these


difficulties can be ironed out and I do not wish to stop this experiment.
But the House must consider the financial stringencies of the nation. We must consider the full cost in a year. I would say that the initial costs are likely to be heavier than the continual running cost over the years. Therefore, we should be rather careful to make sure, if there is to be large capital and running expenditure, that it is relevant to the economic stringency of which we are all too well aware.
Finally, there is the question of editing. I understand that the B.B.C. will be responsible, and I am certain that hon. Members, be they a Sub-Committee of the Services Committee or any other ad hoc Select Committee, are not the right people to edit a Parliamentary programme. That is essentially a matter for those experienced in editing. Whether we eventually go on to television or only go as far as sound recording, the job must be done by expert editors. Hon. Members may have other things they do better, but they certainly could not do editing. I hope that we shall be quite clear about that.
Reading Senator Fulbright's book, "The Arrogance of Power", I came across the following quotation from Mark Twain which seems appropriate:
 We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. David Winnick: The proposal made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is very modest. Indeed, I did not expect much of a debate and came into the Chamber hesitating to speak because I felt the decision might have been taken on the nod. But obviously my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is very much opposed to the idea.
We should bear in mind that, apart from anything else, the House of Lords is to experiment with television. We are only experimenting with radio. I can foresee a situation in which the House of Lords may decide to televise its proceedings for the public while the House of Commons decides not to televise its

own. The public will thus see the House of Lords in action but not the House of Commons. That does not frighten me in the least, because if that situation occurred and the House of Lords were televised, that would be the greatest incentive for the Commons to be televised.
If we knew that day after day the proceedings of another place were being televised, I am certain that most hon. Members, even though they might now be anti television, would say that we must televise the Commons as soon as possible, that the televising of the Lords was unfair competition. Therefore, I am all for having the Lords being televised as that should speed the way to our being televised.
I was very sorry when last year those of us who wanted the Commons to be televised lost by one vote. Perhaps we should have organised ourselves better than we did. However, we did not do so and, on a completely free and non-party vote, we lost by only one. I was sorry to hear the Leader of the House say that the issue of televising the Commons would not come up again this Session —perhaps I misunderstood. It would be rather unfortunate, but perhaps continued pressure from both sides of the House by hon. Members in favour of televising our proceedings may make him change his mind.
It seems to be part of our rather conservative attitude that in the age of mass television we are tonight discussing without much enthusiasm, whether we should experiment with radio. This is remarkable. I could understand the House in the 1930s or 1940s debating with some hesitation whether to experiment with radio, but today, ten years after mass television, it shows how conservative our attitude is towards various experiments that we should be considering whether to bring our proceedings to the majority of the electorate.
I want people to know about the workings of Parliament. It is true that personally I have not received any request from constituents on this issue, but it is not a matter of receiving requests from the electorate. In the present state of politics I want to ' sell "the House of Commons. [Laughter.] I do not mean "sell" in that sense. I want people to understand and appreciate the workings of Parliament, because already in the present


economic crisis certain people in certain sections of the community are saying that they have no time for Parliament or that Parliament should neet only once a year. There is an anti-democratic feeling among certain people, although I see from some of their letters that they are rather keen to deny that accusation. It is all the more important that, rather than being on the defensive, we should go over to the offensive and explain what Parliament means, and the best way in which to do that is to let the electorate see the workings of Parliament—the putting of questions and the debating of issues of today.
A rather interesting article on Parliament appeared in the Sunday Times yesterday. Written by Ronald Butt, it concluded:
The party politicians, for all the seemingly idle chatter of their arguments, preserve our liberties as no junta of business men or technocratic administrators could do.
That is obviously right. All hon. Members agree with that, or they would not be here.
But in this age of mass communication we tend to isolate ourselves. Our accommodation for visitors upstairs is extremely limited. Constituents cannot cone to listen to Question Time unless they first write to get a ticket. Some years ago it was suggested that there should be closed circuit television of the Commons upstairs which would allow 1,000 more people to watch our proceedings. The programme "Today in Parliament", which is broadcast in the evening and again the following day, seems to be very popular with many people. There is an interest in Parliament and at a time when so many anti-democratic and anti-Parliamentary voices are being raised, we should do our utmost to demonstrate the necessity for Parliamentary democracy. The best way to do that—and this was my view last year—is to televise our proceedings.
If this experiment is a foot in the door —and I am not willing to deny it, although I do not know what the views of the Leader of the House are—I am all for it, and the sooner we agree to this proposal and to televising our proceedings the happier I shall be.
A century and a half ago there was bitter argument in the House about whether the Press should publish our

debates. Some hon. Members objected at that time, saying that it would undermine the dignity of the House if our proceedings were published. They were obviously conservative in their day, but if they were in the House now, they would be arguing against this modest proposal and certainly against televising the House. Just as it was inevitable that sooner or later reports of our proceedings would be published in newspapers and newspapermen allowed in the Gallery, so the time will come inevitably, I hope not too far in the future, when our proceedings will be both broadcast and televised.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: I am entirely opposed to the Motion, on a number of grounds. First, it appeared on the Order Paper only on Friday and we have not had very much time to consider it. Perhaps the Leader of the House does not appreciate that hon. Members have to go to their constituencies and engage in other things over the weekend. This Motion has been brought on much too soon.

Mr. Crossman: I announced it when I announced the business of the House on Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: It may have been Thursday afternoon and I am sorry that I did not hear that announcement, but, even so, the debate has come very soon after the announcement for a subject of this importance.
Secondly, I believe that the experiment will lead to many other undesirable experiments. It would lead to the public listening to our debates and that would have very grave consequences. The experience in Australia, for example, should be sufficient to prove that the public does not want it, and Australian Members in Canberra would be very glad to get rid of it.
My most important reason is that this is a time above all times when we should be considering expenditure. Everybody knows the parlous state of the nation's finances and the stringent financial conditions now obtaining. I do not know how much the experiment will cost—perhaps only a few thousands, which is not very much—but thousands add up and at a time when public expenditure should be cut, it is wrong that we should add to it. The House would do very well


to scrutinise all public expenditure from now on and not add to the burdens of the taxpayer. I should like to know what the Leader of the House has to say about that.
I have two general observations. If we get either T.V. or radio in the House, two things will follow: the Front Bench will be strengthened against back bench Members; secondly, let us bear in mind that both are monopolies.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: At the beginning of the debate I found myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with one of my hon. Friends and agreeing almost entirely with an hon. Member opposite. The remarks of the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) were particularly sensible. I did not share the view of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison). I appreciate his sincerity when he says that we should not take this decision now, because it might cost some money, although that argument could be, applied to almost any of our decisions on any subject. As the principle of broadcasting has been with us for forty years or more, it is time that the House took account of the possibility of broadcasting its proceedings.
The reason why I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is this. Our words are already broadcast. I do not say that the Motion will lead to the House having its own words broadcast. It is purely an experiment. But we recognise that it is an experiment designed for the purpose of broadcasting our words. I advocate this. I have advocated it consistently ever since I was elected, for a very good reason, namely, that our words are already broadcast. The question is not whether the words of hon. Members will be broadcast this week, but whether they will be broadcast by themselves speaking or by somebody else.
On "Today in Westminster" or "The Week in Westminster" there are innumerable spoken quotations from hon. Members. The question is: should it be somebody else's voice or our own? That is the only substantial difference. Hon. Members may say that that is not

necessarily true with television, but that is not what we are discussing tonight.
I should congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the simplicity of his Motion because it avoids a lot of problems. It was suggested in the Committee on Broadcasting. It was rejected for reasons which I need not go into. My view is that it is better to proceed by easier stages and for the House to deal with the problems of communicating its proceedings by radio before it attempts to tackle the much more difficult problems of television. Although I am an advocate of both, I would say that we should take the simpler medium first and deal with the problems which that involves and then proceed to consider the problems of the more complex medium.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton asks, "Who wants it?". He merely illustrates the fact that many opponents of the idea have not read the Report of the Committee on Broadcasting. In an Appendix to that Report, the results of a public opinion survey were quoted. Several were produced in newspapers at that time. It was clear that people who had any opinion at all were in favour of the broadcasting of our proceedings. There is no real doubt about that. For hon. Members to say that that is not the case is gilding the lily. They may legitimately argue that it would alter or have an effect on our proceedings or that they do not want our proceedings to be broadcast, but to argue that the public at large do not want them to be broadcast can be disproved by the public opinion surveys which have been published.
I should like to raise two points on the Motion with my right hon. Friend. The implication of the Motion, just because it is simple, is that any facilities which the broadcasting authority, the B.B.C. in this case, requires will be granted to it by the House of Commons Services Committee. My right hon. Friend is nodding his head and therefore I gather that that is the case. That is a good thing. That is the proper way to do it.
The second point which is not so clear is this. My right hon. Friend said that the House must decide whether the experiment shows that we should broadcast our proceedings to the public. Does the House make up its mind simply from


what it hears—the specimen broadcast—or will there be a Select Committee to advise the House?

Mr. Crossman: When we have had the experiment—and I want to discuss later how long it should last—if it has been a success we should put another Motion before the House saying, "In the light of the experiment, we should have broadcasts by the B.B.C.". But that would be a separate Motion and a separate debate based on the experiment. This Motion is limited solely to the experiment.

Mr. English: I thank my right hon. Friend. In that case, I agree with the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), who mentioned the question of committees. Very much will depend on how the broadcasting authorities interpret the fair degree of freedom which the Motion gives them. As we said by the Select Committee of which I was a member, if they completely ignore the proceedings in committee and merely devote themselves to certain features of the proceedings of the House, I shall be very much more concerned with what may happen than I have been up to now. I say that as one who in principle advocates this experiment but who believes in proceeding by finding out ways in which it can be done.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton said that this is not a matter of major importance. That has been implied by hon. Members opposite who have said that the experiment will cost a small sum of money and, therefore, it should not be made. In my view, this is a matter of very major importance. The public image of the House was at its highest when it was being made known through all existing means of communication—in the nineteenth century and the early part of this century when in every newspaper Parliamentary proceedings were published and there were no other means of communication.
The beginning of the decline of Parliament in the public eye can be traced to the time when it ceased to appear on media of communication and when other media of communication grew up in which Parliament was not specifically presented. There is no doubt about that. One can argue about whether there is a connection, but there is no doubt that the two events are concurrent in time. In my view, there is a connection.
There is no doubt that there cannot be effective democracy unless we have an effective means of communication between the electorate and the elected. For that reason, I am in favour of this idea in principle. One can argue that there may be difficulties and that there are problems. I spent many hours in the Committee discussing the problems. I agree with all that. But the one argument which I do not believe is true is that this is not a matter of major importance. Whatever the outcome—whether it is to broadcast or not to broadcast to the public—the effects will be considerable and of major importance to democracy.

7.18 p.m.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: If I have learned anything since becoming a Member of the House, it is that one can never count on anything going smoothly, however innocuous it may appear to be at first sight. If I had not learned that yet, I should undoubtedly have learned it tonight.
I wish briefly to offer my warm support and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends for the Motion. I should like to endorse very strongly everything said by the hon. Members for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) and Nottingham, West (Mr. English) and dispute the remarks of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price).
The main objection raised in the original debate by hon. Members on both sides of the House was that having television in the House would be a nuisance and that it would result in Members being heated by lights, with wires all over the place, and suffering inconvenience. One thing is crystal clear: there is no possibility of hon. Members suffering inconvenience from this experiment. Without doubt, it can be done virtually without hon. Members noticing and certainly without their being inconvenienced. That argument can utterly be dismissed.
The hon. Member for Westhoughton rested part of his attack on selection. He asked, "How are the programmes to be selected?" I believe—and this has been said before—that in a matter of this kind one ought to trust the people who are doing the job. It is purely an experiment to decide whether we are satisfied that they can make an acceptable kind of selection which will not distort the House in any way and which will not be unfair.


It is my belief that the people engaged in broadcasting, whether television or radio, are engaged in broadcasting rather than in politics. They are anxious to do a good and efficient job in presenting a programme and in presenting a balanced programme.
I believe that the right action for the House to take is to have confidence in these people in the B.B.C., who have such an excellent record, and in their ability to do this with fairness. Nevertheless, I share the view expressed by those hon. Members who have said that to ask hon. Members themselves to try to do what is a professional and technical job would be a terrible mistake.
The hon. Member for Westhoughton also said that there was no evidence of public demand. If we were never to do anything until the public had made their clamour about it very loud, we should never do anything at all. We should still be watching the magic lantern and we should never have had the cinema. It is for people like the B.B.C. to lead the public in this kind of direction, and, whatever the Leader of the House may say, we should remind ourselves that this experiment is not entirely for hon. Members but is also for the benefit of the B.B.C. They may decide that it is not very good and that it is not the kind of programme that they want to put out. If they so decide, it does not matter very much what we say. We should leave that side of it to the B.B.C. and not worry about waiting for the public—

Mr. Kenneth Lomas: In view of the hon. Member's remarks about public demand or the lack of it, may I ask whether he is not aware that less than 5 per cent. of the Members of the House are present to debate whether their voices should not should not go on the air? What conclusion does he draw from that? Does he not realise that the majority of Members, as is obvious by their absence from the Chamber, are not in favour of the broadcasting of debates?

Dr. Winstanley: I should not be so naïve as to make any assumption or deduction from an arithmetical calculation of the number of hon. Members on either side of the House at any particular time. That would be as misleading as

attempting to divine what is or is not public opinion on this matter.
The hon. Member for Westhoughton is a Member whom I know and we all know to be very jealous of the rights of the House and very proud of the House, and to have a great affection for the House and all its proceedings. I understand his fears. He does not want it to be changed. I do not altogether agree with him. But if he thinks so highly of the House—as I know he does—why is he so afraid of letting people see it?
There is, I am sure, misunderstanding at the moment. People do not properly understand what goes on here. But I can see nothing but good coming from allowing the public more fully to know what happens and what does not happen. In saying that I fully take the point made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) that things go on in other places than the Chamber, and I hope that Standing Committees, Select Committees and Specialist Committees, too, would share in this kind of experiment.
The cost of the experiment would be minimal. I admit that we must not squander money unnecessarily, but the B.B.C. could mount an experiment of this kind for a very small sum indeed. Indeed, they are constantly mounting experiments of this kind to decide whether other matters are right and proper for broadcasting. They have to have such a budget for these experiments and we should not be put off by that difficulty.
May I put two points to the Leader of the House? If the Order is approved, I hope that we shall persuade those responsible for carrying it out and for doing specimen programmes to do some regional programmes so that hon. Members may see some experiments on a regional basis. I do not want to suggest that my foot is in the door, as so many hon. Members have said. Indeed, I hope that my foot is not in my mouth when I mention this. But perhaps the B.B.C. could also consider, purely for experimental purposes, offering the sound tapes for use in conjunction with pictures on television—purely as an experimental process and at a later stage. I am not saying that this should happen straight away, but it is a possibility worth considering.
I warmly welcome the Order and I hope that it is approved. Hon. Members have referred to the fact that the previous Motion was defeated by one vote. It is ironical to note that to my personal knowledge five hon. Members were away from the House doing television programmes at that time. I hope that not too many hon. Members are away this tame doing sound radio programmes.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: I sometimes despair of the conservatism and reaction of hon. Members in many parts of the House, and in the most unexpected quarters, whenever we discuss problems of this kind. I was not altogether surprised by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Westhaughton (Mr. T. F. Price), because he his a cynical and suspicious trait in his character almost as great as my own. I, too, view the actions of Government—of whatever political nature—with the greatest of suspicion always, and therefore I do not take amiss the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton when he voices suspicion that this might be the foot in the door, the attack from the rear which can often lead to trouble.
But I believe that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will go down in history as the most radical reformer of the House we have ever seen or are ever likely to see, and this Motion is a step in the same direction. One can advance all kinds of reasons for not taking it—for example, calling in aid the lack of public interest or the lack of interest in the House. But my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Lomas) knows that we can have a foreign affairs debate in the House, when we are discussing matters of peace and war, with a smaller attendance than the present attendance, and that does not necessarily imply that hon. Members are not vitally concerned and interested in questions of peace and war. It is no indication whatever of the lack of interest in a topic. If a conclusion may be drawn at all, I draw an opposite conclusion to that of my hon. Friend: that the House found this Motion so agreeable that they thought that it would go through virtually on the nod.
After all, it is an experiment for two or three weeks. It commits nobody to

anything. After the experiment the Leader of the House will have to report to the House what further progress, if any, might be or should be made and whether the whole idea should be dropped or whether it should be extended. For my part, I hope that it will be extended, and in a minute or two I will suggest ways in which it might be extended.
The second argument— a rather specious argument—is that there is no evidence that the public want it. There is no evidence that they wanted the National Loans Bill which we have lust debated. There is no evidence that they want many things which the House does. The House is not here merely to follow the public. To some extent it must lead the public. When my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton expresses terror that the public should find out what happens in this place. I remind him that we are not a monstrosity and that we do not belong to the Trappist order. We are here to say what we think on behalf of our constituents, and if they do not agree with what we say they will very quickly find out about it by other means.
The great danger at the moment is that they get a distorted view, very often from the Press. There is an alleged disillusionment with politics and politicians. If there is disillusionment, it stems in large measure from the distortion and the treatment of what happens in this House by other organs of dissemination of information. I think the Press is very largely to blame for this alleged disillusionment about what goes on here. I am as interested as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison), and others who have spoken in this debate, in expenditure on this matter. Of course we must all be concerned with public expenditure, but we must strike a balance between the money we have to spend as an elected body and the benefit that accrues to the public from it.
If this limited, closed, narrow experiment succeeds and we extend it to the public, the public will assess whether they are getting value for money. They will very quickly tell us whether they think they are getting value for money. Those who do not like it can switch it off. They have that recourse if they do not like it coming into their homes.
In answer to the question, "Where do we go from here?" I agree with the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) that the period suggested is much too short for any worth while experiment. We should think rather in months than weeks. I sympathise with the view that the Press should be allowed to see and to assess the experiment. That is the way in which one builds up public opinion. The Press could make comments on the experiment, on how the techniques could be improved, what the dangers are, and so on. If we are allowed to see it, there is no reason why the Press should not see it also.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) was speaking, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House explained the procedure which would follow the experiment. I hope that there can be further experiment within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. I sometimes look at Westminster Hall and see a grossly under-used mortuary, almost. If this experiment proves a success and worth extending, I wonder if we could extend the radio broadcasts of the proceedings of the House to Westminster Hall. I wonder if we could heat it and provide accommodation for the public there so that when there is a big occasion—perhaps Budget day—it would be possible for a very large number of people in Westminster Hall to hear what the Chancellor is actually saying. That is the kind of extension I should like to see.
I agree with the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) about extending the process to Committees. I take the view that even more important work takes place, unpublicised, in Committee upstairs. I am very much a believer in Committees. Almost all the Select Committees have now made their proceedings, in all or in part, accessible to the public and the Press. A logical extension of that, if the proceedings of the House were broadcast, would be also to have the proceedings of either one or all of those Committees broadcast.
From these remarks my right hon. Friend will conclude that I am very much in favour of the experiment. I wish it the best of success. I hope that it will go much further than the inadequate and

limited experiment proposed to the House tonight.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Victor Goodhew: (St. Albans): I speak as one who voted against televising the proceedings of this House, but I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of that decision. The reason why I voted against at the time was simply that I was worried about the question of editing. When I listen to "Today in Parliament" on my radio, if I have been present throughout most of the debate, I begin to doubt whether the description of that debate is a description of the debate I heard.
On the other hand, when I analyse the situation I realise that however hard I might try to be impartial and objective in balancing the factors during a debate I am being partial because I cannot possibly avoid being partial. My anxiety was how anyone else could be impartial, because all people have political views, even if they are television commentators or radio reporters or editors. Therefore, I had in mind great anxiety as to how any editing of a television performance would come about and whether it would give a balanced view.
One trouble now is that the vast television viewing public gets only one picture of this House. It is the picture of Ministers and shadow Ministers being interviewed by a television commentator. It is not very difficult for a commentator, perhaps having failed to get elected to Parliament, to think up one or two questions which a Minister or a shadow Minister cannot answer at a particular moment and to make him look a fool, to make it look as if the commentator or interviewer it all-wise and the Minister or shadow Minister is all foolish.
I am not certain that the so-called lack of interest in Parliament and the impression that people today consider all politicians are unworthy does not arise from this picture which the public generally get of Ministers, shadow ministers and Members of Parliament being made to look shifty, foolish or ignorant merely by clever questioning whereas, were we televising the proceedings, it would be possible for the public to see hon. Members in their own surroundings.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I rapidly bring myself back into order by saying that, having changed my view, I


think this must be a step in the right direction and an experiment well worth making. My only anxiety is, as the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) said, whether the period is quite long enough to assess the success of the experiment. I also agree with those who have mentioned Committees upstairs. It is most difficult to get a balanced idea of who is doing the work in this place if one merely knows the number of Questions an hon. Member Las asked at Question Time or the number of speeches he has made on the Floor of the House. I hope that these matters will be considered by the Leader of the House and I hope that the House will accept this Motion.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. Denis Coe: I welcome this Motion. I was present at the last debate when we discussed televising the proceedings, but I did not take part in it. One thing which disappointed me more than anything else about that debate was the fact that the House turned down a simple experiment
It is my impression that after that debate the general public were in some confusion about the fact that we did not turn down the actual televising of this House but merely an experiment to see whether we wanted to do it. I therefore hope that the House tonight will make good that previous decision by accepting this experiment for what it is—something which will give us and, as the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) pointed out, the B.B.C. an indication of exactly what is possible in these circumstances.
In wishing that this experiment will go ahead, may I hope that it will continue for longer than my right hon. Friend has suggested? A longer period than three weeks would give us a better opportunity to judge the matter fully.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) claimed that our constituents do not want this experiment. One of the advantages of being a new Member of Parliament is that one's constituents like one to go to talk to them about one's first year in Parliament. I have done a great deal of this. I must tell my hon. Friend that on each occasion the indications were that my constituents very much wanted

to have the opportunity of seeing Parliament at work or of hearing Parliament at work, and I believe that this is very important.
Some people argue nowadays that Parliament's prestige is going down. One of the reasons for this, I think, is the feeling that the work of Parliament and the work of the people are two separate things. Any means of communication which can bring them closer together is something which we, as Members of this House, ought to examine very closely. I suggest that televising and the broadcasting on radio of our proceedings will be a help. I know that there are problems associated with it and I think we would be foolish to ignore these, but I suggest that an experiment of this nature will give us a good idea whether it really is a possibility or not.
I submit that any form of editing of reports of our debates by television and radio would be less partial, less biased, than the present reports of our debates which are, as it were, broadcast through the Press. I cannot believe that any editing done by the broadcasting authorities could be as biased as the reporting of our debates in the Press. Therefore I cannot help feeling that, whilst there is a problem connected with editing, it is something which, in terms of our everyday work, will be much more fairly done by radio or television than could possibly be the case in a biased Press.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton also talked about this place as being a performing flea pit—or wishing it should not be considered a performing flea pit. Again, I would say to him that we already have in the Public Galleries members of the public coming to see us at work. Therefore I cannot see any logical reason why we do not extend this principle to embrace a wider audience. It is surely important if Parliamentary democracy is to he held in high repute. Once we allow the public to see us at work here I do not feel there is any reason to argue against extending that principle further, or that, by doing so, we should be doing anything harmful to this place.
I re-emphasise the point that if we are to televise the work of this Chamber it is very important that we give a balanced picture of Parliament as a whole, and


the only way to do that is to look at the Standing Committees and Select Committees as well. I hope that when my right hon. Friend winds up the debate he will be able to give us some sort of guarantee on that matter.
That is all I wish to say. Like others, I hope that this experiment is the beginning of a process by which we can look to a number of ways in which Parliament can draw closer to the electorate. This is a limited experiment. I urge the House to take a look at it. Then, on the basis of that, we can decide where to go from there.

7.43 p.m.

Mr. Eric Ogden: This is the first occasion when I have had the opportunity of following in a debate my own. Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Coe). I regret therefore having to disagree with a great many of the things he has said, especially as this is the first time I have had to disagree with him since he came to this House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) said that reactionaries were found in strange quarters of the House. I am told that I have some sort of label as a "moderate" who occasionally goes mad and criticises the Government. I must warn my hon. Friend that on this issue he has a reactionary right behind him. I was one of that gallant band of 131 who some months ago wandered into the No Lobby to cast votes against televising our debates. It was the most reactionary vote I have ever cast in this House, and I have cast some strange ones, but I have never enjoyed a vote more, and I think I was right at that time.
I began by being in favour of broadcasting and televising, but then I found that it seemed that we were not going simply to broadcast the proceedings of Parliament but that we were going to make our place, our Chamber, our House, our Parliament, available for some other people to decide what they were going to say happened in this place and what picture they were going to show of it. This was confirmed when I found, after the negative vote of the House, that television sets had already been ordered,

and we have them in various parts of the Palace. I understand that certain enunciators were on order as well. We have had other things on order as well, before the vote of the House.

Mr. Crossman: I think perhaps my hon. Friend was not present when I carefully explained to the House at the beginning, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), that this was a completely untrue statement. The question of the enunciators is a totally different thing. It has nothing whatever to do with broadcasting proceedings here. I am sorry if my hon. Friend did not hear my previous explanation.

Mr. Ogden: My apologies to the Leader of the House that I did not hear that explanation when he first gave it. I had anticipated that this debate would take place later than it has. I am very grateful for the explanation he has given and I am sorry he has had to repeat it. I accept entirely what he has said. All I can say is that it would be very easy to convert the one kind to another.
I concede entirely that the logic of the argument and the theory against televising or broadcasting is precisely the same as that of the argument put up against recording proceedings of Parliament in HANSARD or in the Press or anywhere else. The same argument applies, but I am entitled to ask, For what purpose? Then we come back to this point. I am told by one of my hon. Friends that "democracy is imperilled" unless the experiment goes through. Is it that 630 Members of Parliament are not able to convince people outside this House of the importance of Parliamentary democracy unless we have the broadcasting and televising of our proceedings? I cannot accept that explanation.
We are told that this is an experiment limited in scope, limited in time, for which we are to have the spectacle of television screens in Westminster Hall—and we criticise vandals outside. And there should be reporting of Committee proceedings, too, it is said.
We shall need Channel 1 for the House of Commons and Channel 2 for the Lords. If the Lords want to televise their House, let them do it. But let them also pay for it. Let them pay for it if they


want to televise their House. Then, for the Committees we shall need Channels 3, 4, 5, 6—perhaps up to 13 to include the Services Committee. Who is going to listen to all this?
And what will be the cost? I am sorry I did not hear the figures which my right hon. Friend may or may not have given. —[An HON. MEMBER: "None of us did."]—But the suggestion apparently is that it will cost only a few thousand pounds. I am not a Scot, but perhaps the newest hon. Member, the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing), representing the latest opposition party in Scotland, would agree that "mony a mickle mak's a muckle"—every little bid adds up. So this may cost £6,000, £10,000, £20,000 at a time when the B.B.C. wants the licence tees to be increased from £5 to £6, or whatever it may be.
I agree with the hon. Member who said that it is never a good time to make changes—it is never a good time to raise the salaries of Members of Parliament, it is never a good time to raise pensions, it is never a good time to do anything eke; but I would draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to an article which appears in The Guardian this morning by Mr. William Davis, the Financial Editor, who has been right before! We a -e asked to tighten our belts, and Davis forecasts that before we are through this economic crisis there may be higher taxes, higher Purchase Tax, higher taxes on tobacco and drink, and higher Income Tax, hire purchase controls, with restrictions on overdrafts, and so on. With all this economic difficulty, are we going to spend £20,000, perhaps, on a limited experiment here?
If any hon. Members want to hear their own voices, let them buy a tape recorder. If they want to see their pictures, let them buy themselves a camera. This experiment can well be held over for another twelve months.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: To my great regret, I have heard only part of the debate. However, while I have been present there have been references to the last vote when the Motion before the House related to the televising of our proceedings. Great play has been made with that decision, and there have been a number of actual or implied accusa-

tions made against those hon. Members who voted against it.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will make nothing of the fact that some of us were not here at the beginning of the debate. He seemed to be about to make something of it, but I would remind him that we were not to know that the previous debate would fold up so early—

Mr. Crossman: I did not mean any implication in what I said. I wanted to explain why, having already said it once, I did not want hon. Members to feel that I should say it twice.

Mr. Mendelson: My right hon. Friend now wears a sweet smile, and I accept his friendly intervention in the spirit in which it is made.
I want to express regret that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) has told me that he intends to desert those of us who voted against the Motion last time. It means that we are now even, and my hon. Friends and I will have to work hard to find a replacement for him. However, it should not prove difficult.
The argument is an extremely serious one. While one may have one view about the limited experiment in broadcasting being proposed today, it would be illegitimate to broaden the argument from there to television and other kinds of experiments which might be proposed. I understand that the Government are not putting forward the Motion about televising our proceedings again because they have not a majority in favour of it, any more than they had last time. They are well advised to take that view, because they are not likely to get a majority in favour of it.
When they refer to the last vote, hon. Members do not make life easy for themselves by giving the impression that there are 131 fuddy-duddies who are not "with it" and who have not moved into the second half of the twentieth century. There were serious grounds for their opposition, and, since the vote, I have had occasion to discuss the matter with a number of people who are active in television and broadcasting companies. They do not take that view, because they know the seriousness of the problem involved.
Any support for the Motion before the House tonight must not be taken as an


indication that the same support will be forthcoming for an extension into television, and I hope that my right hon. Friend does not dissent from that. The differences must not be blurred. The one very powerful argument which has not yet been adduced and which moved a very small majority of hon. Members to reject the previous Motion is that there is a clash between media. It is an objective argument which has nothing to do with particular predelictions about the House of any individual hon. Member. It resides in the fact that television is tied to its main function of providing entertainment.
There is an element of education in the B.B.C. Charter and the I.T.A. arrangements, but, essentially, in a highly competitive way, television has to provide entertainment. One of the pre-conditions of success is that viewers should be riveted to their chairs. It may affect the commercial companies first, but Auntie B.B.C. will have to follow, because she has to take into account her own position as a competitive organisation. After a number of months, if it is shown to the senior executives of the companies concerned that there is no audience for the programmes, they will have to consider whether there ought not to be something else in their place at those times. As a result, the proposition to televise everything being done in the House will go out of the window very soon.
As soon as it becomes a firm proposition, however, the question immediately arises: how much, and what is to be shown? It is at that point that it becomes a matter of selection. The present quarter of an hour of "Today in Parliament" is no guide to what might happen in the selection of material for television. "Today in Parliament" is a useful programme which is listened to by a very small number of people who bear no comparison to the mass audience of television programmes. The man who edits "Today in Parliament" is under strict instructions to produce as objective a report as he can without regard to its entertainment value. Entertainment plays no part. As we know, the most enjoyable reports in "Today in Parliament" are those which report us or our closest friends as having taken part in a

debate. That does not mean, however, that it is of great entertainment value.

Dr. Winstanley: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not mean to mislead the House, but he intends to do so by suggesting that there are only ten or 15 minutes of broadcasting of Parliamentary reporting. In fact, the average is 4 hours a week of radio broadcasting which stems directly from this place.

Mr. Mendelson: That intervention is unworthy of the hon. Gentleman. It is wrong to suggest that I might mislead the House. I was addressing myself to one programme, "Today in Parliament". That programme is often quoted as a reason why people should not worry about selectivity, but the point is that "Today in Parliament" bears no comparison to what we are discussing.
What was in the minds of the 131 hon. Members who voted against the previous Motion and what has not been disproved is that, if a clash of media occurs, the consequences may be that there will be the kind of reporting of the proceedings of the House which leave out most of what is most important. I have in mind the quiet work and the interventions of many hon. Members, very often influence debates and policies much more than other hon. Members, but who would not be great entertainment on television.

Mr. Coe: Would my hon. Friend agree that one way of finding out whether this is likely to happen is to have an experiment?

Mr. Mendelson: I do not think that that would help at all. These propositions have nothing to do with technical experiments.
The other main point argued on the previous occasion was that, if there have to be certain changes introduced into the House, if the whole machinery has to be changed because people outside find that they are more interested in certain types of procedure than others, if it is found that some of our procedure is out of date and has to be made more comprehensible to people outside, what of it? My answer is that the procedure of this House exists for the purpose of passing legislation. Is is not there for entertainment. If there are to be changes in our procedure, they must be made by the House to provide better government


and not in order to satisfy pressures from outside. That was the argument. It was powerful then and it is equally powerful today.
My right hon. Friend has already agreed that any suggestion of supporting his experiment in broadcasting implying future assent to another start on the attempt to televise the House does not follow. He said that these two matters are completely dissociated from each other. I welcome that, but I warn the Government that they must not in any way in the future try and foreclose a debate or make any technical arrangements whatsoever or provide any public Honey either in this Chamber or in another place without the prior approval of this House. They would meet the pierce opposition of many hon. Members in this House if they did not strictly adhere to this principle.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. Crossman: With permission of the House, I would ask leave to speak a second time.
I would like to give the two assurances that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) asked for. First, I emphasised in the brief remarks I made at the beginning that this was strictly a debate on a proposal for an experiment in sound radio, and involved no implication about television. I may have gone too far for some hon. Members by saying that we did not propose to make any proposals about television during this Session at all. We think that is something to be thought over.
Secondly, on the question of estimates etc.—I will speak about costs in a moment—I will give that assurance as well.
I should like to comment on something else that my hon. Friend said. At the conclusion of his comments, he summed up a point of view put by a number of h Dn. Members—not always those who were opposing. I agree that the medium of television is a different medium from that of sound radio. In a sense, I was nurtured in sound radio. I spent six years doing sound radio. I am aware that I shall never be as at home on television as on sound radio. I belong in that sense to the sound radio epoch, which is a different technique.
From the point of view of education and getting people to listen to the guts of the thing, there is much to be said for sound without the picture. To-day in Parliament "on sound radio, for example, will give just about double the number of words in a quarter of an hour that one would get in quarter of an hour on television. If one wants to provide a service for those interested in Parliament, then a service on sound radio with live extracts may give one a better service technically than a television programme. This is why I was careful in opening the television debate to make a distinction between the two, and to plead with the House to take note of their respective merits, because they are not the same issue. I was sorry when hon. Members seemed to get so enmeshed in the television debate that sound radio almost got lost in the discussions.
I am not prejudging television. I am saying that taking sound radio on its merits, one can make a strong case for saying that it is a medium well suited for those who are really interested, but not for the mass of people who are not. I suspect that people who want to know what was said in Parliament will switch on sound radio rather than television, as long as sound radio exists. There is a lot of evidence for this, because, despite television, sound radio still has an enormous public. What for? For news and information. It is a good service for news and information.
What we are discussing now is whether, on a sound radio service, the live voice of the M.P. should be used. One can either have live broadcasting of a debate or extracts. But this is not the same as saying "Shall we have it on television as well?" We are right to discuss it separately.
I am delighted that we have had a rather longer time than some expected for this debate, because it has been interesting. I am grateful to hon. Members for the number of extremely useful suggestions that they have made, and I want to go rapidly through them. I start with the very helpful speech of the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan). In ten minutes he put over half the relevant points which need answers.
Concerning the length of the experiment, I am encouraged in one sense. I said two or three weeks. That was not


in my brief. I put it in, and perhaps on reflection I should take it out again, because he may be right in saying that two or three weeks is too short a time for a test. Since these tests on radio cost so little compared with television, a more prolonged test, if it suits the House, is something I will consider.
The reason we have not been able to give an estimate is that we do not know the number of weeks this will take. I might, however, be able to answer the question about what a day of radio will cost after a fortnight's experiment, because capital investment is tiny. We have the place wired, but the B.B.C. has to test whether this wiring is good enough. We shall then be able to see the difference of capital cost between a radio experiment in a place already wired for sound and a television experiment where cameras have to be built into the walls. One is a relatively cheap and easy thing; the other demands major capital investment. Before coming to a conclusion on whether we introduce it permanently, there must be estimates and an agreement with the B.B.C. as to who pays for what and what the relations are.
The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) was right when he said that this is not only an experiment for M.P.s, but that this is an experiment for the Corporation as well. It has to solve a number of technical problems which were raised by hon. Members, including the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke). There are a number of technical problems about sound broadcasting of this lively place which we can only test by experiment. We will have a live closed circuit, and we will be able to go into a room and hear what one of our violent scenes sounds like. We shall then be able to hear what happens to the voices, and we will hear what the B.B.C. can make of it in a programme on the same evening and hear whether it is fair or not.
I say to the opposers that I still think it is a bit unreasonable not to be prepared even to see what it is like on closed circuit, although one would be nervous if one thought of trying it out without first seeing it on a closed circuit.
The hon. Member for Howden also pointed out that one of the lessons we do not know about yet is waste. The

figure of 2 per cent. usage which I optimistically gave is probably more than that on ordinary television. On sound radio, provided it is a success and the B.B.C. wants to use it, the estimate would depend on whether it went out regionally as well as centrally. I can see only a large scale use of the voice of a Member if we have large-scale regional use. The B.B.C. has regional services, and it is prepared to try regional as well as national programmes.
I come to the question which several hon. Members raised, including the hon. Member for Howden, concerning the Press. This is something that I have to discuss. I have discussed it informally with members of the Gallery already. When I announced last week in Business that we were to have this debate, they asked, "Are we excluded?" I said that it is difficult, because it has to be a closed circuit experiment. Before making up our minds about it we do not want it prejudged from outside. It is equally true that I regard the Gallery as very good Parliamentary critics, and it would be unrealistic to say that they should be excluded from listening, whereas an M.P. could listen and give a report to a paper. I am sure that we shall be able to reach a friendly arrangement with the Gallery whereby they join in with us studying this, and seeing it as an experiment and not as something for the public. This seems possible, and I want to discuss it with them. I feel sure that I shall have the support of the other side of the House in going to the Gallery in that spirit, and saying, "We want you, in listening with us, to play the game in trying it as an experiment and not giving it to the public as though it was news."
I was also asked about the House of Lords experiment. That is quite different. The House of Lords experiment will be for three days in each of two weeks—six days of televising. We are making arrangements, if the House agrees, to have a committee room wired up so that we can have the House of Lords experiment on all the time and we can watch it. I felt sure that Members would like a place where they could see the House of Lords experiment for themselves on closed-circuit television. That will be available in Westminster Hall for us to look at, although I am dubious whether in six days we will be able to draw any


conclusions. However, we will have a chance of seeing what it is they are doing and how they are doing. If this Motion is approved we shall be doing our radio experiments as fast as we can.

Mr. Ogden: So far my right hon. Friend has answered points raised by his supporters. Does he know who will pay for the cost of the Lords experiment?

Mr. Crossman: The House of Lords experiment will be paid for by the Government, by the Budget, and by money voted for the experiment. It is, I think, £18,000, and was announced about eight months ago. We decided not to go on, but the Lords decided that they would.
I do not feel that I need to answer one part of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), because my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Coe) gave a much better answer than I could. This was to do with the evidence of the demand for broadcasting. I think that on reflection my hon. Friend would agree that there is some evidence that the public, in so far as it is interested in politics, likes to have its politicians live rather than secondhand or dead. It likes them live, and the evidence is to be found in that there is a greater public desire for seeing on television or hearing on radio a live controversy between politicians than there is for a reported discussion by a journalist.

Mr. J. T. Price: How does my right hon. Friend know that?

Mr. Crossman: For the very simple reason that the public look at those programmes a great deal more than it looks at programmes that merely discuss.
If I may take a concrete example, there is an admirable programme on B.B.C.2 called "Westminster at Work". I suspect that it has very small number of people listening to it, who must be very interested in Parliament, because it does not have much live controversy. My suspicion is that all the evidence suggests that live controversy, whether in the studio, on the Floor of the House, or in Committee, is something which appeals to the public. It is more interested in that than in an account of it, just as people like to go to a football match rather than to read a newspaper report. Although it may be thought to be offen-

sive to compare our proceedings with sport, it is a fact that, by and large, the public likes to see things. If it cannot come to see us, the only thing that it can do is hear or see on radio or television.
There is some evidence of what the public taste is. This does not mean that we shall give way to the public taste. My hon. Friend raised the point whether the public taste existed, and I would say that it does.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how many approaches or letters he has had from his constituents in Coventry about radio or television in connection with this place, because I have had none?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has been listening to the argument. The evidence is to be found, for example, in the attitude of advertisers to certain kinds of programmes. They only place their advertisements near the programmes they feel will draw an audience, and there is overwhelming evidence that this kind of programme has a great appeal. Ask the journalists and they will say that this is so. I am not saying that we ought to do this, I am answering the point about whether there is evidence of demand.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely asks a question about Select Committees and Standing Committees. He reminded me of what I said in the debate on television. We are wired upstairs in three of our Committee rooms. This was done, as the House knows, mainly for HANSARD purposes. It would be just as easy—in many ways easier—to record for the B.B.C. from a Committee room than from the Floor of the House because of interruptions. Intrinsically there is no technical difficulty that I know of in extending the experiment from the Floor of the House to a Committee room upstairs, or to a Committee room outside. It is up to those on Specialist Committees to decide whether they want to be treated in this way. I will discuss, through the usual channels, with both parties, who have been very helpful to me on this subject, about what should be clone on Standing Committees, and if the House have no objection it would be a great mistake not to have an experiment with at least one Standing Committee to see whether some of the technical problems could be met. This also would be on


closed circuit. I can see no intrinsic reason for failing to do this, and I am grateful for the suggestion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) said he was very sad because he felt that we were too late in the race for radio. My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton might agree with me when I say that the experiments in radio have not all been successful. When one talks to Australians and New Zealanders, they are very critical of their radio experiment. This is because they were very ambitious. They provided a separate channel so that one could listen day and night. We have learned modesty from that. We have learned that the allocation of a channel to ourselves would be aping for ourselves an attractiveness which we only possess at rare moments in our lives. There are moments when everyone wants to televise us or to put us on: there are moments when they do not.

Mr. J. T. Price: They would put us out of this House if they heard this.

Mr. Crossman: It is by no means proven by the previous experiments that we could not make mistakes later. But we will not make the same mistakes as the Australians, the New Zealanders, or indeed the West Germans. This is a limited experiment on closed circuit to start with to see how it works out, and whether the technical difficulties can be solved, and the verisimilitudes of the debate, and the back-bench interruptions, which are of the essence of our House, can be retained. If we do not have them it would be a pretty poor reflection of what actually went on.
One of my hon. Friends said that I was putting a foot in the door for television. I am not, I am not entitled to do so. I can only carry the House as far as it is thought right to go in this. On this project it has been agreed through the usual channels, that this is the right distance to go. If the House agrees, they agree that I should put forward these suggestions in this form, and it is therefore in this form that I do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) gave an excellent definition, and stressed the difference, between live radio and television in the treatment of news. He asked me

a number of detailed questions. He asked who would be responsible. This would be the same as we proposed last time. Then it was proposed to have a Sub-Committee of the Services Committee, largely recruited from the Select Committee, which did the excellent work on television and broadcasting. We will have this matter under the control of this Committee, which will have, as it goes along, to take the House into its confidence and ask how long it should go on and what kind of programmes we want.
I hope that Members will go regularly, and give suggestions to this Committee especially set up for the purpose of giving the House the kind of experiment that it wants. I do not know how long it will take or how we shall get on.
I was also asked about tapes for television programmes. This is a new idea, and I rather suspect that it will be stretching the definition, but I will consider it and put it to the Services Committee—whether the use of tapes from the sound radio should be allowed on a television programme of the B.B.C. I do not know what the answer is, but I will look at it. I suspect it will be looked upon as "chiselling" and trying to go a bit too far.
I was asked, too, about extending broadcasts to Westminster Hall. That is a question which ought to be asked when the experiment is over. I see no reason why the public who are waiting outside should not have some radio as well as something to eat and drink. This is the kind of thing in which the Services Committee is keenly interested, and I am sure that hon. Members opposite would agree that it is worthy of examination if we go beyond the experiment and reach the actual thing.
Lastly, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West said, quite rightly, that this is a matter of major importance. I think that he was answering my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton, who tried to imply that we were doing this in a hole-and-corner way. Let me tell my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton frankly that I think this is very important. Maybe I am wrong, but I have a feeling that by the time we tabled the Motion the House had already made up its mind about this and that we would not need to have a long and controversial debate, because I believe that


basically people realise that we would be thought to be a little timid if we did not do this.
We have thought this out carefully. We have made the difference clear in our own minds. This is to be judged on its own merits. Of course it will influence the decision on television. Who doubts that? However, it might influence it by making people say, "This is the kind of service we need from the House of Commons. We do not need anything further". This may be the conclusion which will be drawn. The answer is—do the job, have the experiment; make up our minds about live radio; leave television for later, when we have seen first how this experiment works and whether we want to apply it to the broadcasting of the proceedings of the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House approves the making of sound recordings of its proceedings for an experimental period for the purpose of providing for Members specimen programmes.

LESOTHO (GIFT OF A CLERKS' TABLE AND CHAIRS)

Resolved,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented, on behalf of this House, a gift of a Clerks' table and chairs to the Lesotho National Assembly and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.— [Mr. Grossman.]

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

BOTSWANA (GIFT OF A PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY AND SILVER INKSTAND)

Resolved,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented, on behalf of this House, a gift of a Parliamentary library and a silver inkstand to the Botswana National Assembly and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.—[Mr. Grossman.]

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Orders of the Day — DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (NETHERLANDS)

8.23 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Harold Lever): I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that on the ratification by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of the Convention set out in the Schedule to the Order entitled the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Netherlands) Order 1967, a draft of which was laid before this House on 27th November, an Order may be made in the form of that draft.

This is another of the Double Taxation Orders which are gradually being brought before the House. I can only apologise for the fact that these, unlike troubles, come singly. The House would prefer them to come in groups. It is unfortunate that on this occasion, and with my apologies, it comes as a single one.

This new Convention is to replace the existing Double Taxation Convention between the United Kingdom and Holland which was signed on 15th October, 1948. The new Convention retains much of the substance of the 1948 Convention, but the opportunity has been taken to bring the text more closely into line with the model articles which the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has recommended member countries to adopt. I will try to state in summary the most important variations from the 1948 Convention and, if any hon. Member has that detailed curiosity which sometimes uncomfortably emerges in these discussions, I will do my utmost to cover the points raised.

First, and perhaps most important, is withholding tax on dividends. The 1948 Convention provided, in effect, that dividends flowed from company to company in both countries without any withholding tax. The new Convention in general permits each country to charge a tax on dividends paid to residents of the other country at a rate not exceeding 5 per cent. in the case of dividends received by a company with a holding of 25 per cent. or more in the paying company and in all other cases 15 per cent.—-that is, 5 per cent. where there is a 25 per cent. holding, which is treated for this purpose rather generously as being a semi-subsidiary company, and in all other cases 15 per cent. Where income continues to be taxable in both


countries, relief from double taxation is given by the country of the taxpayer's residence. That will be the position under the new Convention.

The new Convention also includes provisions, absent from the 1948 Convention, whereby capital gains are normally to be taxed only in the country of the taxpayer's residence, unless they arise from the disposal of the assets of a permanent establishment which the taxpayer has in the other country.

Under the new Convention, as under the 1948 Convention, shipping and air transport profits and certain trading profits not arising through a permanent establishment are to be taxed only in the country of the taxpayer's residence. Government salaries and pensions are normally to be taxed by the paying Government. Payments made for the maintenance of visiting students are, subject to certain conditions, to be exempt in the country visited.

The Convention is in general to take effect in the United Kingdom for all years for Corporation Tax and for 1968–69 and subsequent years for Income Tax, Surtax and Capital Gains Tax. The 1948 Convention is superseded as from the dates on which the new Convention is to take effect, subject to a saving to prevent the retrospective withdrawal of relief due under the 1948 Convention.

I hope that this modest agreement which has been reached covering double taxation with the Netherlands will meet with the approval of the House.

8.23 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Convention certainly accords very closely with the Model Convention of the O.E.C.D.—indeed, perhaps more closely than any other we have yet considered in this current series. Therefore, I have very few points to make on it.
One point which I might make by way of introduction is that I am delighted to see that my words spoken last Thursday night in objecting to the retrospective element in many of these Conventions have so rapidly borne fruit.
I confess that this was probably in print before I addressed the House on Thursday, but the fact is that, contrary

to what we have had so far, this Convention is expressed in Article 31, paragraph (2,a,i):
 In respect of income tax (including surtax) and capital gains tax for any year of assessment beginning on or after 6th April, 1968.
I am delighted to see that, and I hope this precedent will be followed, rather than the other which I criticised last week.
The one question I should like to address to the Financial Secretary on the Convention arises out of Article 11, which is the article concerning withholding tax on dividends and which he described briefly, succinctly and accurately to the House a moment ago. My question arises on paragraph (7) which provides as follows:
 Not later than five years after the date of the entry into force of this Convention the taxation authorities shall consult together to study the possibility of an amendment of this Convention which would reduce the rate mentioned in paragraph (2a) of this Article.
The rate mentioned in paragraph (2,a) is the withholding rate of 5 per cent. which the Financial Secretary properly said will be the rate allowed on investments which amount to more than 25 per cent. of the voting power.
This appears to raise a question. With the 5 per cent. withholding tax it seems that both the United Kingdom investor in Holland and the Dutch investor in the United Kingdom are treated broadly similarly. In each case the foreign tax paid both as the underlying tax and as the withholding tax will exceed the tax which would have been payable in the investor's own country. Therefore, no further tax would be paid, the whole amount of the tax in the investor's own country being relieved as a credit under the double taxation Convention.
If the 5 per cent. withholding tax is abolished—which is clearly possible under the terms of paragraph (7) which I have just read—then, whereas this would continue to be true of the United Kingdom investor in Holland, it would no longer be true of the Dutch investor in this country. This arises because the rate of Corporation Tax in Holland is currently 46 per cent. whereas the rate of Corporation Tax in this country is 42½ per cent.
Therefore, the question I ask is: will not the effect of removing the 5 per cent.


withholding tax be to create a greater imbalance between the two sides than already exists if it is retained? Inevitably the rates of tax differ. There is bound to be some imbalance. Would not the effect of removing this withholding tax be to increase imbalance to the detriment not only of the United Kingdom investor in Holland but also of the United Kingdom Revenue, in that if the 5 per cent. withholding tax is removed the Dutch investor in this country would pay only his 42½ per cent. Corporation Tax on that share of his profits and would create the difference between that and the 46 per cent. tax in his own country to the Dutch Revenue?

Mr. Harold Lever: Mr. Harold Lever indicated assent.

Mr. Jenkin: I am not wholly convinced that I am right, but I am glad to see the Financial Secretary nodding. Does not this seem to lead to the conclusion that the United Kingdom Government would be wise to resist any move by the Dutch authorities to remove or even reduce this 5 per cent. rate?
This leads me to a further question. If this is right, why was this provision included? Did the British Government feel it necessary to accede to a Dutch request that this provision should be included? Can the Government at this stage give any indication of what their attitude would be if the Dutch Government came forward with a request to invoke the provisions of paragraph (7) and start to negotiate for the reduction or even the removal of the 5 per cent. withholding tax? If the hon. Gentleman can throw a little more light on this provision, I see no reason why the House should not accede to his request to give this Order an unopposed passage through the House, and we could let it go like that.

8.34 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington: I should like to ask a simple question arising out of Article 31. The article states that the Convention shall have effect, in respect of Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax, on 6th April, 1968; and in the case of Corporation Tax, in the year beginning on or after 1st April, 1964. I hope that the question I have to put is simple and susceptible of simple answer. Is there a distinction between the effect of the statutory Instrument of 1948 and Article 31 of the Convention?
I ask that question in regard to all the matters covered save Capital Gains Tax and Corporation Tax, which did not exist in 1948. I have in mind anyone who would get the benefit of this double taxation relief in respect of Income Tax and Surtax. Will there be any difference in effect for the ordinary man in the street who receives dividends during this year and next year? I think that I understand the effect as regards Corporation Tax, though I am not sure why the date is 1st April, 1964.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. Harold Lever: The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) asked about Article 11(7) and wanted to know why it was there. I am sorry not to be able to be specifically enlightening upon the circumstances which lead to the finalising of any particular Article and its paragraphs. These are all the subject of careful negotiation, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and, in the nature of things, the negotiations have to remain confidential. Otherwise, it would not be possible to have the free contact of minds which is necessary to achieve treaties of this kind.
All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that, after discussion about the arrangements covered by Article 11, the parties came to the conclusion that it would be desirable and useful if, after five years, we could look at the matter again. It will be observed that this represents a change from the previous 1948 Convention practice. The parties have agreed that, in the circumstances, they will look at it again together if necessary, if either of them wants to, in five years.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The paragraph begins
 Not later than five years… 
It can be renegotiated within five years, as I understand it.

Mr. Lever: I accept the correction. Within five years, we can talk about it and look at it further. What view would be taken at any point during the five years, if the Netherlands Government asked us to consult or if we asked them to consult about it, I cannot say at this time. As the hon. Gentleman said a day or two ago, when we discussed the double taxation treaty with Belgium, there may come a time when I shall be


on the other side of the House discussing these somewhat esoteric matters and he will be on this.

Mr. W. Howie: Mr. W. Howie(Luton): Never.

Mr. Lever: I recognise that that is exceedingly improbable, but the hon. Gentleman seems to regard it as probable. However, even as a possibility, one must exclude the thought that I should attempt to forecast what the hon. Gentleman would say were he in my position when the relevant consultations took place. All I can say at this stage is that, whether his computations are right or wrong, we shall bear in mind what he said about the consequences if any consultations do arise.
In reply to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), I can only say that no one will be worse off retrospectively by reason of this Convention. The 1948 Convention is kept in force so far as it confers a benefit which would otherwise be taken away up to the date of this Order coming into force. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman can be quite clear that until today every United Kingdom citizen is treated for tax purposes at least as well as he would be treated under the 1948 Convention. I think that the hon. Gentleman went on to ask how the new treatment will compare with the old.

Sir E. Errington: On dividends. There are other matters to which I need not refer. I ask only about the Income Tax position.

Mr. Lever: As I thought I had explained, the old position was that neither Government took anything for dividends. Under the new Convention, if one has a holding of 25 per cent. or more in a Dutch company a 5 per cent. withholding tax will be taken from the dividend. If one has a holding of less than 25 per cent., a 15 per cent. withholding tax will be taken from the dividend. Both withholding taxes are new, because the previous Convention arranged that no withholding tax would be taken by either party. I think that that meets both the hon. Gentleman's points. If I have not quite followed them I would gladly go into them later with him.
As the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said, the Convention

closely follows the O.E.C.D. recommendation, with this modification. I hope that the Convention is acceptable to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that on the ratification by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of the Convention set out in the Schedule to the Order entitled the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Incomes) (Netherlands) Order 1967, a draft of which was laid before this House on 27th November, an Order may be made in the form of that draft.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Bishop, Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby and Mr. John Pardoe added to the Sub-Committee on Coastal Pollution appointed by the Select Committee on Science and Technology—[Mr. Howie.]

Orders of the Day — ECCLESIASTICAL AREAS (ROCHESTER DIOCESE)

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Albert Murray: I beg to move,

That the Supplementary Scheme to give effect to the proposals of the Diocesan Reorganisation Committee of the diocese of Rochester for amending and making additions to an original Scheme for the rearrangement of the pastoral supervision of the parishes of Gravesend (Saint George), Saint James, Gravesend, and Holy Trinity, Milton-next-Gravesend, which was laid before this House on 14th November, be disapproved.

The matter concerns a Reorganisation Areas Measure affecting a church in my constituency, with which I should like to deal as objectively as I can.

I have been very grateful during my researches for the help of Mr. James Benson, who is well known in my constituency as a historian. I hope that in the time I represent Gravesend, both in the past and in the future, I shall have a tenth of the knowledge he has of the ancient town. I also thank the Rev. Michael Beek, who became Rector of Gravesend when some of the moves on the Measure had already occurred.

All of us receive a great many letters about different things when matters come before Parliament, but I have received as


many letters about the Measure concerning St. James's Church, Gravesend, as I have ever received on any constituency matter.

One of the rectors of Gravesend, the Rev. Robert Joynes, and his brother, the Rev. Richard Joynes, walked one day in tie 1840s from Gravesend down to the village of Cobham, which is in my constituency. They asked the Earl of Darnley if he would give some land for them to erect a church. He did so, and the Church of St. James was opened in 1852.

Since that time the Church of St. James has become a landmark in my constituency. It is very well situated at the corner of the main road from London into Gravesend. Its posters are seen by every person leaving Gravesend, and those who signed the Petition felt that the posters in the sight of the Church were silent witness and that they were challenge and cheer.

In 1952 it was decided that the Church of St. James should become the parish church of Gravesend and that the Church of St. George should become a chapel dedicated to Princess Pocahontas, who was one of the first American visitors to our shores, and also become a mayor's chapel. The Church of St. George then last its former importance in ecclesiastical terms to the town of Gravesend. In 1964 it was decided to spend a large amount of money—about £8,000—which had been raised in various ways, and included a bequest, on installing a new organ at the Church of St. James and doing a great deal of re-roofing.

I am told by the objectors to the scheme that the bombshell was then dropped on them—that the Church of St. James was to be closed. They adopted various methods of stopping that plan coming about. In doing so they obtained 1,600 signatures to a Petition which stated:
 The undersigned, being residents of Gravesend I, wish by this memorial to register strong protest against the contemplated demolition of the Church of St. James, Gravesend, for both varying and unitedly-held reasons.
For some of us because the demolition will remove from a dominating position in the town a place of Christian worship convenient for attendance by those residing within a half-mile radius of its south-western, southern and south-eastern sides; there being bus halting points from all directions, except the north, within a few feet of its doors, this fact affording opportunities to the less mobile to attend public worship:

The Church is listed by all the buses using this as a stopping point. Everyone knows that the Church of St. James is on this corner.
 For others of us because the silent witness of the existence of the church on a prominent corner site near to its shopping area, with its large notice board carrying frequently changed messages of challenge and cheer, has been an important inspiration to passers-by and would be greatly missed:
For others because the church's contribution to the visual aspect of the western end of Gravesend at the corner upon which it stands by the existence of a dignified structure which supplies a welcome break from the architecture imposed by the necessities of commercial activities upon neighbouring buildings, as well as the reminder of its principal function.
For yet others because they feel that St. James's Church can become, and can be, a rallying point for future religious activity in the direction of evangelisation.
For these and for other unenumerated reasons, the signatories signify their strong opposition to the proposed demolition.

The objectors also say that because of the uncertainly about the future of St. James's Church the congregation has been dropping in size not because people do not wish to worship at St. James's Church but because they feel that the future has been jeopardised by the plans.

Not only have I received letters from many constituents but a letter from a person in Australia. I am certain that this person would not be able to appear every Sunday morning for worship but the letter shows that, even in a far part of the Commonwealth, people feel strongly about St. James's Church.

The point made by the letters concerns the question of the application of the Reorganisation Areas Measures, 1944, to St. James's. The objectors contend that it cannot be applied in this case, since St. James's comes within the exclusion provisions in part I of the Measure.

Section 1(ii) states that a parish shall shall be excluded where
 it appears to the committee that, by reason of causes attributable to the war, or as the result of planning or replanning schemes, the number or situation of the population has so changed, or is likely so to change, as materially to affect pastoral supervision; ".
They feel that while there have been changes in the area and a certain amount of movement from it, the town plan shows that there is likely to be a movement back towards this area. The objectors also feel that the parish church


designate, as it were, St. George's, is in an area which will not have so much residential as industrial occupation.

I ask my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) if, on behalf of the Church Commissioners, he will reconsider this scheme, together with the possibility of a public inquiry being held. The objectors feel that their objections have not been heard as well as they might have been. They feel that had there been a public inquiry, the objections would have carried the day and that the diocesan authorities would have reconsidered the plan to demolish St. James's.

I thank the House for its indulgence on what is a purely constituency matter. I felt that the House should hear the objections before it accepted the scheme and I hope that the Church Commissioners will reconsider the scheme in the light of these objections.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray) has moved the rejection of the supplementary scheme in tones which make it extremely difficult to criticise him. He has been extremely objective and has tried to put both sides of the question.
This supplementary scheme lies before the House for acceptance or rejection under Measures which have laid down the procedure in these matters, the Reorganisation Areas Measures of 1944 and 1954. They laid down that certain areas must first by Order be designated reorganisation areas. This area was so designated, quite correctly, under the Measures. Secondly, schemes have to be presented showing in what manner the pastoral reorganisation of the areas once designated is proposed.
At all stages in these procedures there have to be requisite consultations and these were all carefully carried out when the original Order was put forward, and there has been no objection whatever to the designation of this area as such an area. It was only when schemes came to show details by which the reorganisation was sought to be effected that there began to be criticisms, as was only natural, because the details of the scheme are far

more likely to produce some sort of criticism than is the Order itself in principle.
When the scheme for these parishes in Gravesend was first put out, there was anxious consideration by the Diocesan Reorganisation Committee for 18 months and, as a result, as long ago as 1950 the scheme was put forward as a proposal. Even then there was some objection and criticism, because part of the scheme was that St. George's, the ancient mother church of Gravesend, which it is now sought to make the parish church, was thought to be about to be closed down and there was considerable objection to that. Indeed, the borough council objected to it strongly. An amended scheme was therefore put forward in an effort to meet the objections, and when that was put forward in 1951, there was no objection and the scheme came into operation in 1952.
Eleven years went by and it was found that one of the churches of the trinity of churches in Gravesend with which we are dealing had become dangerous and had to be demolished, so it was said. Another scheme had to be put forward and again no objections were received. The supplementary scheme now put forward is for the name of the benefice and the parish to be altered from that of St. James's to that of St. George's Gravesend and for St. George's Church, excluding that part of it which is a memorial chapel, a chapel of unity in memory of Princess Pocahontas, should become the parish church and that St. James's Church should be closed down. This scheme was initiated by the former incumbent and rural dean and he obtained the consent of his parochial church council to the scheme, that which is now on the Table. A resolution of the parochial church council accepting the scheme was passed by 18 votes to five.
I have mentioned the consultations which have to take place before a scheme comes before the House for acceptance or rejection—the bishop, the rural dean, the parochial church council, Gravesend Borough Council, Strood Rural District Council, Kent County Council and the planning authority, the Ministry of Public Building and Works, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Central Council for the Care of Churches all had to be consulted, quite apart from local consultations of a more informal nature.
On the very eve of the institution of the new incumbent, there was held a further special parochial church council meeting, as a result of which, by thirteen votes to five, a resolution was passed which most certainly did not oppose the scheme, but which used these terms:
 In view of the present financial state of the country in consequence of which all major planning schemes are deferred, and in view of objections raised to the closing of St. James's Church, the Parochial Church Council proposes to the Church Commissioners that the scheme be indefinitely deferred ".
That was slightly contrary to the previous resolution passed by the Parochial Church Council. But on 1st June, 1967, the rector and the Parochial Church Council reconsidered the draft scheme after the rector had just come on to the scene. As a result of that reconsideration, they accepted the scheme by fifteen votes to four.
In the circumstances, I am sure that the House would not wish to pay too much attention to the fact that a petition was signed by 1,600 people, although, of course, it must pay attention to all expressions of view coming, in particular, from the locality. But I wonder whether it could be said that a large proportion of the 1,600 who signed the petition were worshippers at the church, because only about 60 attend the most popular service. I wonder how many of them contributed to the diocesan contribution last year, when the contribution was not made up.

Mr. Murray: I am sure that my hon. arid learned Friend is talking, not about the 60 who attend the most popular service, but about the 1,600 who signed the petition.

Mr. Mallalieu: I am sure that people would contribute as best they could, but the contribution was not fulfilled because of the financial state of the congregation which habitually uses the church.
I want to say how much I personally and, I am sure, everyone else who has dealt with this matter feels for those whose church to which they have become accustomed, in which perhaps they were baptised, possibly confirmed and married and to which they have looked throughout their lives, is threatened with removal. I understand fully their feeling, and I know that everyone else under-

stands it, that they have been driven to accept this solution whereby the ancient mother church of Gravesend should again become the parish and centre of something living.
It is true that there have been great population changes there, and there are still more to come. As far as anyone can see, those which are to come are likely to be in favour of making St. George's—the church which this Scheme seeks to make the parish church—the centre of Gravesend in every sense. There is no doubt that people who have worshipped all their lives in a certain church feel deeply about this matter, but there is little doubt, after all the enquiries and careful and anxious thought given to this matter, that if the church is to make her living witness in Gravesend, the best way in which it can be done is for St. George's to become the parish church once again. St. James's, the church, will not disappear, but the building of St. James's will disappear in the near future if the Scheme is accepted. The church will go on and, I submit, with greater vigour than ever if it is allowed to concentrate in this ancient and beautiful church of St. George's.

Question put and negatived.

Orders of the Day — ROAD ACCIDENT, LEICESTER

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Howie.]

9.5 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: I wish to make it clear at the outset that I raise this subject not because I am dissatisfied in any way with the attitude of the Home Office in the case of Mr. Riley's father or that I am at all dissatisfied with the attitude of the police towards the accident which occasioned the late Mr. Riley's death. Rather I raise the matter tonight because I am incensed that the law as it stands makes it impossible for the local constabulary in Leicestershire successfully to bring any prosecution against those responsible for Mr. Riley's death.
The House may wonder why I should seek to bring before it at this fairly early hour for an Adjournment debate the case of a hit-and-run accident. After all, these are occurring every day and, as our traffic laws get more and more stringent, hit-and-run accidents are likely to


be more and more severely penalised. In this case there is one special aspect. It was a hit-and-run accident and the victim, the late Mr. Riley, died, having languished in hospital for a few weeks, after he had been knocked off his bicycle. But the significance of the case is that no police prosecution has followed against the driver of the vehicle responsible.
Hon. Members may say that obviously the police do not know who was responsible for the accident and who was driving the vehicle. What makes the case unique is that the county constabulary know who was in the car at the time of the accident when Mr. Riley was killed. The House may say, if that is the case there can surely be only one answer to the question why there has been no police prosecution against the car driver: it must be that the vehicle was a corps diplomatique vehicle. I can assure the House that that is not the answer. The only reason why the county constabulary are unable to proceed against the person in charge of the vehicle is that they cannot positively identify which of three known occupants of the vehicle had his hands in the wheel at the time of the accident. They know without a shadow of a doubt the names of the three occupants, who were witnessed by many people. But simply because these three people have wilfully conspired together to deny that any of them was driving, the constabulary are powerless to act. It is for that reason alone that I have felt obliged to bring the case before the House tonight.
I have received some very courteous, full and informative letters from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, for which I am most grateful. He has explained exactly how the hands of the constabulary are tied, and I make it clear to him that I fully appreciate that they are powerless to act. Before I conclude I shall, I hope, suggest one or two ways in which possible future repetitions of this type of accident can be avoided so that the driver cannot get away scot free.
The story of this accident begins on 23rd December when the late Mr. Riley was bicycling to work in the morning. He was hit by a vehicle driven at a fairly fast speed—according to a witness, 40–45 m.p.h.—and travelling on the wrong side of the road. His bicycle was thrown to

one side. Mr. Riley was seen to fly through the air. As I have described, after languishing in hospital for a few weeks, he died.
The vehicle carried on and did not stop for a moment. It was not until midday that the vehicle was traced. Traced it was without a shadow of doubt because there were eye witnesses who jotted its number down on cigarette packets. One eye witness actually identified the three occupants of the vehicle. According to the coroner's report, he happened to know them all and was so exact as to identify the position in which each of the occupants was sitting. There were plenty of eye witnesses, and at midday the vehicle was traced and police proceedings commenced.
It came out at the coroner's inquest early this year that a number of witnesses had been traced. One person who gave evidence was not an actual witness of the accident but he was the foreman in charge of the three men seen to get into this vehicle and drive away. They finished their nightshift in a Leicester factory at 5 o'clock in the morning and started drinking whisky. Just before 7 o'clock they were warned by their foreman that none of the three of them was fit to be in charge of a vehicle. He advised them not to drive, to which they made some unidentifiable reply and he saw no more of them. Those three men got into the vehicle and shorly afterwards it came up against Mr. George Riley, who was bicycling to work in the other direction, and hit him with the fatal result I have described.
One would think that when there is an incident such as this with three men positively identified and named by a person who happened to know them all, there would be no difficulty whatever in the law taking its proper course, a course which I am quite sure when it was enacted in this House hon. Members on both sides intended it to have—that the driver responsible should be prosecuted for this lethal crime, and, if he could not be pinpointed, surely that the three of them should be prosecuted for conspiring together to deflect the course of justice.
I first came into this case as a result of a visit from my constituent, the late Mr. George Riley's son. He came to see me and placed this sorry chapter of incidents before me together with letters


from the Chief Constable of Leicestershire explaining that the police were powerless to act because they could not definitely pinpoint the driver. Mr. Riley's sail, to put it bluntly, wanted blood. Sympathy was no good to him.
I took the case up by writing to the Under-Secretary of State to the Home Department and to the Lord Chancellor, bath of whom corresponded in a very sympathetic vein. The Lord Chancellor was good enough to say that, although the police were powerless to act, it might be that Mr. Riley's son might wish to initiate private proceedings. Mr. Riley's son is not a wealthy man. He cannot go to great expense in initiating private proceedings with a problematical outcome. The Under-Secretary gave me advice, which I fully accept, that under the law as it stands at the moment the police are powerless to act.
The reason, as I said earlier, I have brought this case forward for debate on the Adjournment tonight is that this must be a loophole in the law. If it is the case that three known and positively identified occupants of a motor vehicle can get away with a hit-and-run accident involving the death of an innocent party and get away with it simply because the driver whose hands were actually on the wheel at the time cannot positively be identified surely there is no reason whatsoever why this sort of thing should not spread—once it is seen that this is a way of avoiding the proper course of justice, that two or more people involved in a hit-and-run accident can get together and say, "Let none of us admit he was driving, and provided we keep mum and nobody positively identifies us we shall get away with it". If this were to become widespread it would be a quite improper avenue of escape for those who take charge of a vehicle when they are not fit to do so and use it as a lethal weapon to strike down some innocent victim.
I do not wish to conclude my remarks by being over fulsome, because the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite knows very well my views about the case. I want to conclude by putting to him a comparison which I think is fair in this instance. If a gang of criminals in the course of armed robbery kill the person they are robbing, or kill an innocent

passerby or bystander, every one of the members of that gang is liable to be charged, on being apprehended, with the crime of murder. I most strongly feel that if two—or, as in this case, three—occupants of a motor vehicle which is involved in a hit-and-run accident causing the death of an innocent person conspire together to maintain silence, each of those two or three should be charged with the offence which would be pinned upon the driver were he known.
I am not a lawyer. I am only concerned in a simple way with trying to obtain justice for my constituents and those who come to see me. There is, without shadow of doubt, a gross injustice here. Mr. Riley remembers his father and wishes to see that those who were responsible for his death are brought to book. I hope that, as I have raised this matter tonight, even though the hon. and learned Gentleman assures me, as I know he is going to do, that there is nothing he can do about it now, he will at least recognise the gravity of this case and give me a promise that he will seek to have amending legislation introduced—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is just across the border at this moment.

Mr. Farr: —at the next proper opportunity available.

9.18 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dick Taverne): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) for raising this case in the way he has done, and I certainly have every sympathy with Mr. Riley's son in this tragic accident in which his father, Mr. George Riley, was killed. The hon. Member has described the circumstances of the accident. Perhaps I could add a little more about the background.
Mr. Amriki Singh had the use of a motor car belonging to Mr. Hardhajan Singh, who was at that time in India and had given permission to Mr. Amriki Singh to use the car while he was away. The car was driven to work by Mr. Amriki Singh on 22nd December, with a Mr. Sohan Singh and a Mr. Jarnail Singh. As the hon. Member has said, early the next morning those three got drunk. At


about 7.20 on 23rd December a Mr. Cassidy saw the accident in which Mr. George Riley was thrown off his bike. He took the number of the car, incorrectly as it turned out, though it was later traced, but he did not see who was the driver.
Another witness, Mr. Freestone, told the police that he heard the collision and saw someone flying through the air after being struck by the car. Again, he could not identify any of the occupants. A Mr. Crowe heard the collision and saw the body of a man flying through the air. He, again, could not identify any of the occupants of the car. So far, one has a number of people who saw the accident but could not identify the person driving the car nor any of the occupants.
Then there was a Mr. Ram Prokash, who told the police that at about 7.30 a.m. on the day in question he heard someone knocking on the front door of his house. He opened the door and saw Mr. Jarnail Singh standing near the driver's door of the car, which he knew to be the property of Mr. Hardhajan Singh. He saw Mr. Amriki Singh on the front passenger seat, very drunk and unable to help himself. He also saw Mr. Sohan Singh standing on the pavement near the car.
A further witness, Mr. Majhor Singh, was near the place in question and saw a car coming towards him. It was this car, and he saw the occupants. He said that the driver was Mr. Amriki Singh, so there one has an identification. However, he says that Mr. Jarnail Singh was sitting in the back and that Mr. Sohan Singh was sitting next to the driver. A further witness, Mr. Kewal Singh, again saw the car in question and saw Mr. Jarnail Singh sitting in the back. However, he did not know who was driving the car, or how many people were in it.
As for the occupants of the car, obviously their statements were highly relevant as to whether there was any conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. Mr. Sohan Singh said that, when he left the factory with the other two, he sat in the rear seat of the car, Mr. Amriki Singh sat in the front passenger seat, and Mr. Jarnail Singh was driving. He does not remember which way the car travelled and does not remember being involved in the accident.
Mr. Jarnail Singh told the police that Mr. Amriki Singh drove the car to work on the day before the accident. He said that, at five o'clock on the morning of the accident, they started to drink. The foreman shouted to them, "Are you going to drive home?" and he replied, "No, we are going on the bus." They drank a lot more, but he could not remember how they left the factory or how he got home.
Mr. Amriki Singh agreed that he had a lot to drink. He did not remember leaving work and knew nothing about an accident. He was not aware that the car had been involved in an accident until he was told by the police.
A newspaper report of the coroner's inquest states that Mr. M. Singh, who must have been Mr. Majhor, reported that he was walking down Mere Road when he saw the car strike a pedal cyclist. However, he told the police that he did not see the impact take place and did not hear the sound of any crash.
What were the police to do, in those circumstances? As the hon. Gentleman recognises, they were in great difficulties because, although there were three witnesses of the accident, none could identify the driver. Another witness would say that Mr. Amriki Singh was the driver but that he did not see the accident. Then there was Mr. Sohan Singh, who stated that Mr. Jarnail Singh was the driver, and then there was Mr. Ram Prokash, who said that, some ten minutes or so after the accident, Mr. Amriki Singh was sitting in the passenger seat and that Mr. Jarnail Singh was standing by the driver's door.
There was no evidence to identify the driver, and it is a well-established principle that the police ought not to prosecute unless there is evidence which pinpoints the person whom they intend to charge. This would have been a very serious prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving, they had to prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt, and there was no indication of who was the driver.
It was not only the view of the police that there was no evidence against anyone; it was also the view formed by the solicitors consulted by Mr. Riley's son. They took the same view: that there was not enough evidence to justify criminal proceedings against any particular person.


As the hon. Member has recognised, ft ere is, in any event, no question of the Home Secretary interfering in the decision of the police not to prosecute.
The question then raised by the hon. Member was whether perhaps there could not be a prosecution for conspiracy. The charge here would be one of conspiracy by the alleged occupants to obstruct the course of justice—again a question for the. Chief Constable concerned—and, on the information the Chief Constable had, there was no evidence to justify any sort of prosecution on the ground of conspiracy. Most of them did not know what had happened.
It is true that under Section 232 of the Road Traffic Act the owner of the car has to give the police the information that is required and other persons have to give any information in their possession about the driver at the material time when certain offences, of the kind obviously involved here, have been committed. But in this case the owner was in India, and it may well be doubted whether it could have been proved to the satisfaction of any court that anyone else was deliberately refusing to provide information. It did not seem to arise.
It is a tragic case. It is a shocking warning of the worst of the sort of cases which led to the introduction of the Road Safety Act this year. I can understand the utter feeling of frustration on the part of Mr. Riley's son, and I can understand the feelings of the hon. Member, but this kind of situation not uncommonly happens under the traffic and general criminal laws and one cannot go arounds saying that in that case, whoever is guilty, the law must prosecute innocent and guilty alike.
I remember a case a long time ago of a judge who, in the course of a trial, gave a very graphic example of the difficulties which the law sometimes faces. The example he gave was of two people who were in a room with a third person who was murdered, and it could not be established which of the two had actually struck the blows, nor could it be proved that they had acted together. The judge said that it was the duty of the jury to acquit in the circumstances, because the worst of all possible things would be for an innocent man to be convicted.
We are faced with a similar situation here. We know that there were three people in the car, but the police could not establish who the driver was, so there was no alternative but, in effect, not to prosecute anyone. It is very sad when someone who is clearly guilty evades justice, but it would be even more sad if someone who was not the guilty party was prosecuted and convicted. This could not be called a case of deliberate evasion of justice when no one could remember what happened.
As the hon. Member conceded, this case was thoroughly investigated. It is a sad and tragic case, but there was no other alternative for the police to pursue.

Orders of the Day — OCEANOGRAPHY

9.29 p.m.

Mr. Tom Dalyell: Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise the subject, of which I have given notice to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology, of the development of the marine sciences, the development of the marine environment, and the general state of British oceanography.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Has the hon. Gentleman given notice to the Parliamentary Secretary of his intention to raise this?

Mr. Dalyell: I have indeed. On two or three occasions over some weeks now I have been in contact with the Ministry of Technology about an Adjournment debate and I gave definite notice that, should the House collapse, I would be raising this matter. I gave notice at ten minutes past Four this afternoon, the same time as I gave notice to you, Mr. Speaker, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for being here.
On a previous occasion I was lucky to do the same thing on Aldabra where perhaps my purpose was destructive in trying to prevent something. On this occasion it is entirely constructive and my hope is that I will do something to encourage the good efforts of the Government in the matter of the marine sciences. Even though we are at the beginning of what I hope will be a very long story, the Government already have a fairly


good tale to tell about their efforts on marine environment development.
The purpose of this Adjournment debate is to progress-chase what the Government have been promising. Such a debate offers an opportunity which we do not get in the debates on the Floor of the House to progress-chase what might be called recondite issues. I would first of all refer my hon. Friend to the Question I asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science on 3rd July. My Question was:
…what study is being made of the possibility of greater exploitation of the resources of the sea and the sea bed by the United Kingdom.
The reply by the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), was:
 Two initiatives have recently been taken. First, the Government have initiated a review which will examine what additional work would be profitable and how such work could be put into effect and co-ordinated with existing activities.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary how far this review has got, and whether he has anything to report since July of this year.
The Secretary of State went on:
 Second, the N.E.R.C. is examining the extent to which it would be justifiable and practicable to expand its exploration of the Continental Shelf with particular reference to economic returns and the needs of the extractive industries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd July, 1967; Vol. 749, c. 195.]
I wonder how far that examination has got. Perhaps my hon. Friend can tell me.
A moment ago I used the phrase "a recondite issue". Perhaps one should put this in the setting of the American context, where last year the Federal Budget was of the order of 330 million dollars for the marine sciences. This year it is of the order of 410 million dollars, and next year it will go up to 490 million dollars.
The Americans have set up a marine sciences programme and some idea of its importance can be measured from the fact that the Vice-President of the United States, Vice-President Humphrey, is Chairman of the Marine Sciences Council. From an interview of half an hour that I had with him in June, in his office in the Senate, there is no doubt that this

extremely important American politician attaches great weight to his duties as an active chairman of the Marine Sciences Council.
Not only are the American Government paying attention to oceanography and the marine environment, but American private industry is too. Although I have no exact figures, Boeing Lockheed, General Electric, Westinghouse and North American Aviation, and General Dynamics have each sunk over 100 million dollars of their own money into industry associated with the marine environment.
This is becoming true in this country. I would refer to the Cameron Ironworks in my own constituency. It has the most modern forge, at any rate in the Western world, and is extremely concerned to know how the British Government will develop an industry associated with marine environment.
I make no apologies for arising a subject that is not perhaps regarded by most people as being highly important at present. It will certainly be regarded as being extremely important in the 1970s. Here I must commend the initiative of the Government. They were very active in encouraging the Atomic Energy Authority to sponsor a conference at Harwell bringing together academics, industry and many other interested parties. The Harwell conference was a great success. My hon. Friend was officially represented by some extremely able members of his Department. What end product has come from that conference? Can my hon. Friend give any progress report?
I want to refer also to the good work of the National Institute under Dr. Deacon. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would agree that perhaps the time has come to make the work of the National Institute rather better known than it is now. I want to ask one minor question. When there was a tragic aircraft crash in the Mediterranean why was it, when researching the metal structures of the aircraft at depth, that we went to American experts rather than use our own experts?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will deal with the subject which he himself has chosen for the debate.

Mr. Dalyell: This is in fact related to the work of the National Institute of


Oceanography under the Director of the Institute, Dr. Deacon. I think that salvage work is one aspect of the work than can be done in the marine environment. I would justify that question by the importance which is attached to it my some members of the National Institute.
I would like to ask, too, about the re search ship "John Murray". I commend the Government for their action in promoting even a very small ship in this field. Do the Government intend to build any more ships to enlarge on the work which is being successfully carried out by the "John Murray" at present? I would refer to a letter from the Minister about the National Environment Research Council of 22nd September:
 N.E.R.C. is particularly concerned to ensure that research workers have the sophisticated equipment they need to make the best use of their time and skills.
This has got to be given priority. What are the Government doing to provide the necessary equipment in what is necessarily becoming an ever more sophisticated field of operations?
I want to refer also to the Report of the Working Group of N.E.R.C. on a British National Oceanographic Datum Centre. In a letter the Department wrote, it was stated that this was being pursued, and I would like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary has any news to report.
I come now to the biggest of all the laboratories dealing with the marine environment. This is the Fisheries Laboratory at Lowestoft, where I think last year the expenditure was of the order of £1,1 90,000.
I want to refer to a letter dated 23rd August from my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), who was at that time the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology. He said this:
 Briefly the situation is that there is no technical difficulty in producing a fish protein concentrate of the type you mention and no doubt about its nutritional value. The real problem which has been shown up by trials in developing countries is the lack of any substantial consumer demand for such a material.
It may well be that the expanding populations of the developing countries will need to mike some changes in their traditional diet if they are to be adequately fed, but there are many problems in this; the technical ones are the least formidable, the fundamental revision of customs and the development of distribu-

tion lines are likely to be most difficult where the need is greatest.
I think that my hon. Friend knows that this is a matter of some contention. There are very many scientists, particularly those who are concerned with likely shortages of nutritional value after 1975 and into the 1980s, who really find it difficult to accept the view which is put by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, the then Joint Parliamentary Secretary.
I ask my hon. Friend whether in his Ministry there is any reconsideration of thinking on the matter of marine protein concentrate. The view abroad, particularly among the Americans, is that there is an important future. Although I would not wish to stray from the current subject, it is in this very week that the remarkable developments of B.P. at Lavera in the South of France, led by M. Champignat, have become public in the ability to make protein derived from petroleum products. This has some bearing on the need for marine protein concentrate, and I wonder whether my hon. Friend has any observation to make on this important matter.
Next I come to the role of the Navy. I think I should make it plain that I would not put forward any proposition to the effect that suddenly overnight the Royal Navy should cease to be a fighting service and should give up its entire being to the needs of the marine sciences. This is not the argument at all. But I think it is true, and it is certainly the opinion of a number of highly placed naval officers to whom the Ministry of Defence know I have been talking, that there is scope for a great deal of enlargement of the Navy's activities in the development of marine environment, particularly in the hydrographer's department, and the simple charting of the Continental Shelf, which needs to be done around British shores.
I should like to refer to a letter from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy, dated 7th September 1967, as follows:
 Both the Hydrographer and the Director of Naval Physical Research are members of the Oceonography and Fisheries Committee of the Natural Environment Research Council. This involves close liaison with British scientists, institutions and industry concerned with oceanography and the Committee constantly


reviews the national effort. As a result a national programme for the future exploration and study of the sea is developing. The Hydrographer advertises well in advance the general movements of his survey ships, and, as far as possible, accedes to requests for accommodation and facilities for oceano-graphical studies. During the last few years, for example, we have granted such facilities to scientists from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the White Fish Authority, and are now planning, in collaboration with the Royal Society an examination of heat exchange between the sea and air in mid-Atlantic. Close relationships are maintained, amongst others, with the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Cambridge University ".
I think we are often inclined to be critical in this House, and very often in the past, perhaps, I too have been critical, of defence thinking, but I would pay tribute tonight to the excellent co-operation that the Navy has shown in these matters, and say that all these scientists to whom I have spoken have the highest regard for their naval contacts. In this House I think an expression of thanks ought to be given to the Navy for their great co-operation, and particularly to the Defence Ministers who have encouraged it.
I should like to refer to something else in my hon. Friend's letter. He went on to say:
 Any increase in civil interest and commercial activity in these fields would make it practicable, except for specialised naval applications, for a longer and more effective attack to be made on these problems. This would he to the advantage of the Royal Navy but we would expect that in return our own contribution to the research programme would continue on a wider basis to be of help to all participants ".
I hope that my hon. Friend will convey to the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy that many of us would like to see his activities in this field enlarged at the present time, especially when there is perhaps going to be a rundown of naval personnel, and this extremely important work could be an example of weapons being battered into pruning hooks. There really is scope for the Navy at the present time to take part in an enlarged British marine science programme.
I have however, one criticism, and here I refer to a Question answered on Friday, 23rd June last. I asked the Secretary of State for Defence

 if he will consider ways in which information on diving obtained by the Royal Navy, Fan be made available for British industry involved in the civil development of the seabed.
The Answer was:
Details about standard naval operational diving techniques are already available to industry generally ".
There are some people in industry who dispute that somewhat, but the Answer goes on:
 Information on techniques still in the research and development stage, however, could be released only to those firms which have a clear appreciation of the considerable risks involved. The Navy Department is already planning a symposium on this subject to which representatives of industry and of other Government Departments concerned would be invited."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1967; Vol. 74, c. 364.]
Has this symposium taken place—it is rather important—and what has the follow-up action been?
Second, is my hon. Friend satisfied with the number of skilled divers available in this country? My general impression is that we are becoming very short of skilled divers in relation to the industrial and other tasks ahead of us. Would not the Navy be the best qualified of all to train them in this field?
Next, a question of which I have given by hon. Friend notice regarding the Government's help to the Kraken project off Oban. Does he think this is a good and worthwhile use of resources?
Now, a rather different question: how can we fit in with the United States programme? There are some of us who believe that oceanography and the development of the marine sciences presents an ideal occasion for meaningful international co-operation. My hon. Friend knows that, for the second time this year, the secretary of the American Marine Sciences Programme, Dr. Ed Wenk, was in this country talking to the Minister of Technology and also to the Minister of State for Education and Science, my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchen (Mrs. Shirley Williams). If we are to have that international co-operation which many of us would like to see, there is some desirability in having overall direction of the British marine sciences programme. I understand the dangers in having a number of civil servants imposed from above and, perhaps, a number of naval officers imposed from above. But this is not what


is asked. What is being asked for is a focal point of leadership and co-ordination so that we may deal with countries abroad and, perhaps, gear our own programme to their needs as well as our own.
Here is a concrete example. It is not my business tonight to refer to the Aldabra Atoll in a defence context. I say only that there are many who would like to see a modest pioneer research station set up on Aldabra. This is certainly the view of the Royal Society. We would like to see it set up in conjunction with a number of other research stations which would he promoted and paid for by the American Government. It is certainly the view of the head of the Smithsonian Institute, Dillon Ripley, that there is considerable scope for co-operation between Britain and the United States in a world oceanography programme. I think that many pure scientists would like also to see the Soviet Union and other countries included.
There is a practical basis here for something which can be done in the Indian Ocean now. I hope that, in the not very distant future, there will be an undertaking from the Government to join in the work which the Woods Hole Institution in the United States is doing in the Indian Ocean and to promote that small research station on Aldabra which could be the beginning of a joint marine science programme in that part of the world.
What about the mining of phosphorite nodules, which is important for British industry, and, perhaps the most important thing in the short term that a marine development programme could do, the production of gravel? Can my hon. Friend say anything about the production of gravel in relation to the kind of programme we have discussed tonight?
There is also the simple point that the legal problems of the sea must be solved as soon as possible. Mr. Jerry Brougher the vice-president of the Cameron Ironworks, which are now becoming so important to Scottish industry, said in a discussion that the first thing politicians must do to help industry is to sort out the legal problems. Mr. Brougher, speaking from his base in Texas, has a considerable knowledge of the problems confronting us in marine environment industries. Perhaps my hon. Friend will have discussions with my right hon. and

learned Friend the Attorney-General to see what can be done.
Finally, I should like to raise the question which must be related to any marine science programme, that of desalination plants. The most practical example is the possibility of the West's setting up a desalination plant in Israel and perhaps another in the Arab world, through a firm such as Weir Westgarth. I refer to the Memorandum of Mr. Edmund de Rothschild, which has been discussed with various members of the Government. He is happy that it should be quoted in public.
It is headed: "Water for the Middle East", with sub-heading, "U.K. Content in Cost Estimates", and reads:
 Analysis of the capital cost of a dual-purpose power water scheme incorporating an S.G.H.W. reactor and multi-stage flash distillation plant, based on a submission made by the U.K. A.E.A. in February, 1966 (giving 200 MW(E) saleable electricity and 100 m. gallons of water per day) shows the following breakdown of costs between currencies. These figures should only be considered as an indication and would need revising before any actual quote might be made, in order to incorporate advances in reactor technology.
The important figures are that the United Kingdom component in a power/ desalting plant would be £35 million, comprising 69 per cent., and other currencies £16 million, comprising 31 per cent., of a total of £51 million. Of indirect costs and water and electrical transmission facilities the United Kingdom component would be £13 million, comprising 54 per cent., and other currencies £11 million, comprising 46 per cent., of a total cost of £24 million. There is also the question of ancillary equipment. That is a practical, sensible, technical scheme whereby the lamentable situation of food supplies and irrigation in the Middle East might be partially solved.
Although it may be an off-beat issue at present, a vast potential exists in a marine science programme not only for developing countries but for ourselves. Anything that we can do for the Middle East or countries in tropical areas suffering from droughts will more than replace military expenditure we commit at present, and it would have the added benefit of vastly helping British industry and our balance of payments. A marine science programme would be an example of enlightened self-interest, and that is why I commend it.

9.54 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Dr. Jeremy Bray): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) for giving us an opportunity to discuss marine science and technology. As he said, he kindly gave us notice of his intention to raise the matter some time ago and he did so again earlier today.
The House had an opportunity of discussing marine science earlier this year when the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser) raised it on 31st May. My hon. Friend who replied was the present Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, then the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, and he dealt mainly with the scientific aspects of the work. I shall take the opportunity tonight, in reply to the very wide-ranging questions that my hon. Friend raised, to concentrate mainly on the technological aspects.
I would say in passing that the work of the National Institute of Oceanography is well known and appreciated. I am happy to undertake to look at what further steps might be taken to make it better known. I have nothing to add to the letter of my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs on the work of the Fisheries Laboratory and, in particular, fish protein concentrate.
In the defence area we are, by virtue of the integration of the former Ministry of Aviation with the Ministry of Technology, combining those parts of the defence research programme and the civil research programme which fall within our area of activity. An instance from the marine field is the hovercraft area, where we have a single hovercraft unit covering both defence and civil applications.
My hon. Friend asked a number of questions in the technology field on which I should like to concentrate. He referred to the review announced by my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Education and Science. The review was set up following the Harwell Conference and was committed to a working party with terms of reference roughly on the following lines. It was asked first, to review research and development now in progress on all aspects of marine science and technology in the United Kingdom. This will, I hope, meet the point that my hon. Friend made about the very diverse

activity that is going on and the need to examine its inter-relations to provide at any rate the beginnings of the focus of co-operation which he asked for in the context of international developments.
Secondly, the working party was asked to identify areas of marine science and technology which are likely to be the most economically profitable, and to consider what further research and development would be necessary to exploit them. It would be a mistake, and unjust to the working party, to expect more than preliminary conclusions from its study of the problem. We cannot expect fully justified projects with full cost-benefit analyses attached to them. It can only be an initial identification of areas which are worth examining more closely with the help of experts.
Thirdly, the working party was asked to advise on a programme of action and on means of co-ordinating the existing and proposed programmes of research and development. We shall, therefore, be following up the work of the working party and have an open mind about how this should most effectively be done.
My hon. Friend asked how the Government looked at the problem of developing the industry which will be concerned with exploiting marine science and technology and meeting maritime demands of all kinds. Anybody who has been as concerned with the world of science and technology as my hon. Friend has will agree that we have now a great deal of experience on the relationship of major programmes to industry, and, looking back, I am sure that he would be the first to point to the dangers of a really major applied research programme undertaken by an organisation which was not integrally linked with industry. Clearly there is a rôle which institutions dedicated solely to research, with their own source of funds, are able to play. But we must make sure that that rôle is planned with the close co-operation of industry and that arrangements are made with industry—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gourlay.]

Dr. Bray: We must make sure that arrangements are made with industry for the exploitation of research and that industry is brought into the guiding and shaping of the programme. Perhaps I can best illustrate this by referring to a point which my right hon. Friend made about the work on desalination which the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell has been working on, in a programme under Section 4 of the Science and Technology Act, for the past year or so. In that part of the programme of work which has been directly relevant to current exploitation—the work on multi-stage flash distillation — they have been highly successful, together with Weir Westgarth. This firm specialising in this work, has secured practically all the major world contracts in this area open to public tender in the course of the past year. That is a remarkable achievement on which I am sure the Atomic Energy Authority and the company deserve the congratulations of the House.
But it shows the kind of arrangement which we have to make in marine science and technology generally. We have to have a set up in a firm which has not only the right technology but also the right management and sales organisation and which is able to form the right link with the research organisation. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will not press us—I do not suppose for one moment that he will—to set up some sort of maritime research authority with a budget of anything like the size of the United States budget on the marine sciences programme. If this kind of relationship with industry is to develop, clearly we must get down to very considerable detail in examining the areas to which a marine sciences programme cart contribute. These were very extensively explored in the conference at Harwell in April to which my hon. Friend referred.
I should like briefly to remind the House of some of the very wide-ranging subjects which need investigation in this area and of the many possibilities in marine technology. Perhaps the most immediate problem is the development of improved methods of fishing. Other hon. Members may have had the experience which I have had in a nuclear submarine of watching the movements of fish swarms on the sonar. I am told that in the North

Sea in a submarine it is possible to watch swarms swimming into and out of the nets controlled by the trawlers and that they often wish they had some means of shouting "grab" when the swarm is in the net. Clearly such techniques are extremely expensive and not suitable, as they stand, for use in an ordinary trawler, but there is the question whether a fishing fleet should be so organised that expensive gear could be concentrated in one ship and used for the guidance of neighbouring ships. These possibilities clearly should be explored.
My hon. Friend referred to the production of fish protein concentrate. It may be possible, and indeed desirable, to go somewhat further than that and to meet an animal feeding requirement by tapping the ecological chain at a somewhat lower level, filtering out and processing concentrates of small crustaceans living in the sea, making that the basis of an animal feedingstuff.
A further development is fish farming which might be expected to go beyond the breeding of gourmet varieties to fish of more staple varieties.
It is notable and regrettable that so much of the experience of deep water civil engineering is now concentrated in the United States. This is evident to those who have visited the North Sea oil rigs, the pipe laying barge and so on, from the colossal concentration of American expertise in this connection. Clearly we were right to exploit it where it was available, and we could not conceivably have built up the volume of effort which we have on the Continental Shelf without American technology. Equally clearly, it is a subject in which we should examine the contribution which we can make ourselves.
There is a need for fundamental information about the environment at the bottom of the sea. Here I should like to refer to the project which my hon. Friend mentioned, the Kraken project at Oban. This is an under-sea laboratory parked at a depth of about 90 ft. where scientists will live and work at the pressure of the surrounding environment and will themselves be able to work in conditions which in a sense are more natural and certainly less expensive than those of similar experiments overseas which have gone mainly simply for increased depth without necessarily greater


relevance in application. A very large part of the Continental Shelf is at relatively shallow depths—obviously, by definition—and in working at depths of this kind it is useful to have the sort of experience which may be collected from the Kraken exercise.
My hon. Friend referred to the possibility of undersea mining. The first stage is exploration. Means of coring and sampling the sea floor are a necessary start. There is the possible use of small, cheap manned submarines, the possibility of their independent operation, or, perhaps, more practically, the operation of such submarines at the end of feeder cables.
Clearly, if one is exploring such devices as these the Navy has a very important contribution to make in many cases. Diving is an obvious case. The cheapest way of securing development is often by the adaptation of naval gear. There is a serious lack of manpower for routine diving operations. The glamorous "trouble-shooting" diver is available at a price. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for suggesting that we ought to consider ways of increasing manpower for the more routine tasks.
Some types of undersea mining are achieved already. Gravel is extracted from the sea bed in very large quantities. There are possibilities of a few metal lodes, but probably a more fruitful source of deposits for mining will be horizontal layer deposits. It is known that off the North-East coast there are deep potash beds which could well run out under the sea for considerable distances and be exploitable there. Deep deposits are difficult enough to mine on shore, and probably for some time it will be a matter of land-based shafts leading to underwater galleries going out to sea in the manner of current coalmines, but clearly it would be a mistake to limit the ingenuity of miners in future.
Through the wide range of technology which the Working Party is now exploring we can look for some areas where there is an immediate payoff and where firms will currently have expenditure proposals for projects which they can put to us for Government support. We are beginning to gather the experience, not least in the Programmes Analysis Unit at Harwell, to select particular projects in

industry which are worth supporting. It may well be that there are longer term projects which should properly be undertaken within a purely research institute. We shall certainly explore them, including the possibility of international co-operation in a rather more comprehensive programme such as my hon. Friend suggested.
My hon. Friend is aware that there is a major programme in meteorology. The main feature of this programme is that it has a definite objective—to improve weather forecasting. To forecast efficiently, one needs good current recording of a very wide range of meteorological phenomena. This is the basis of a successful international programme. If one has less clearly defined objectives and means of obtaining them, an international programme can be almost destructive of international goodwill. We need to see clearly the objects at which we are aiming and then get on to the stage of proposing international co-operation.
My hon. Friend mentioned legal problems. He is right in stressing their importance. It was the quick and speedy resolution of the legal problems of North Sea oil and gas exploration which led to the quick development of the North Sea. It is equally clear that it is possible to adopt a solution which secures a quick, immediate payoff but possibly at the cost of creating much greater longer term problems such as those we are facing in the North Sea. But this is a question, not for me, but for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power. I take the point in relation to marine technology.

Mr. Dalyell: I ask my hon. Friend for an assurance that he will approach the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers involved with some definite proposals to the United States Government and to the Marine Sciences Council in the United States—the Smithsonian and Woods Hole Institute—about the possibility of a British centre at Aldabra in conjunction with other American projects in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Would my hon. Friend put that case?

Dr. Bray: In so far as this is a question of research, I will draw the attention of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to this proposal and ask him


to take the appropriate action. In so far as it is a question of technology, I am sure that it will be covered by the Working Party. If it is not covered, I will draw the attention of the Working Party to this proposal.

Orders of the Day — TAXATION (ROAD USERS)

10.18 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I should like in the few minutes available—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Has the hon. Gentleman given notice to a Minister that he intends to raise a matter?

Mr. Taylor: I was coming to that, Mr. Speaker. I gave the Financial Secretary notice, only at 8.41 p.m., that I hoped to raise this question. I apologise to the House for doing it now. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for being willing to come along to the House. I apologise to him for keeping him waiting. I hope that what I have to say will be of some small interest to him.
I wish to raise the question of the burden of tax on private and commercial road users, because at present the Government are considering their future financial policies. While I appreciate that it would be wrong to raise any specific—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must realise that if he wants to ease the burden of tax it can be done only by legislation, and he cannot raise the question of legislation on the Adjournment.

Mr. Taylor: I was not intending to do that, Mr. Speaker.
As the Minister is considering financial policies at present, I hope that he will bear in mind the question to which I wish to draw his attention, namely, the burden of tax on commercial road users. I hope that today, next year and in future he will keep this matter constantly in mind—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no point in the Minister's keeping it in mind unless he is to improve it by legislation, and legislation is out of order on the Adjournment.

Mr. Taylor: Yes, Sir. I just wanted to draw the Financial Secretary's attention to the facts, in the hope that he would take note of the points which I intended to put to him.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not want to appear stubborn. The hon. Gentleman must know that on the Adjournment it is in order to raise matters of administration of the Government but not in order to propose reforms of legislation.

Mr. Taylor: No, Sir. I was not intending to suggest any reforms of any sort, but simply to draw attention to the specific point which I mentioned to the Minister, and that is the burden of tax on road users. I did not intend to suggest in any way a change in the law or any changes even in administration. I hope it will be in order for me to proceed. If it is not in order, I will sit down. I was simply wanting to draw attention—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The difficulty is that lamentations must be followed by legislation, and it is not in order on the Adjournment to raise matters which can be put right only by changing the law. To change taxation means changing the law.

Mr. Taylor: I wanted essentially to draw the Minister's attention to the plight of road users and the burden on them. I wished to raise this, not with the intention that anything specific should be done in any way. I wanted to draw attention, first, to the fact that road users are the great majority of the population and that taxation is a matter of great relevance, particularly as regards prices in development districts and manufacturing facilities in development districts. I did not want in any way to suggest that a change should be made in the present arrangements. Perhaps I can proceed. If it is out of order, I will sit down and apologise to the House.

Mr. Speaker: Unless the hon. Gentleman produces something apart from new legislation, he will have to sit down. The purpose of the Adjournment is to raise with a Minister matters for which he is responsible, but not matters which he can put right only by changes in the law. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would know that by now.

Mr. Taylor: I should have studied the matter in greater detail. Could I draw the Minister's attention to two facts, and two facts only? First, every second family in Britain has a car. This means, on the question of road users and private cars, that every second family in the country is affected. In other words, it is not a question of a minority interest. At present, the question of the costs of transport is directly relevant to the three main avenues of administration for which the Financial Secretary is responsible and has very much in mind at the moment. The first one is the question of development districts and regional development. Clearly the question of the cost of transport is a very vital matter for development districts. I hope that in administering the present tax arrangements the Financial Secretary will bear this very much in mind.
The second matter of which I know that the hon. Gentleman is very conscious at present is the question of the level of prices in Britain. These have been increasing. Obviously we want to prevent further increases. In these circumstances I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear this in mind in the administration of the taxes on road users. In 1960 the burden of tax on motorists was—

Mr. Speaker: Order. With all the administration in the world, the Financial Secretary cannot administer a tax out of existence. A law must be brought in to do that. The hon. Gentleman cannot advocate a change in the law on Adjournment.

Mr. Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I was not intending to suggest any change in the law. I wanted simply to draw the Minister's attention to a burden which exists, thinking that perhaps he was not fully aware of the extent of this, particularly in development districts.
I will make one final attempt. If this is not in order, I will not proceed. On the question of the burden, I have mentioned that the question of road expenditure is directly relevant. I draw the Financial Secretary's attention to a document which was issued by the British Road Federation and sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently when he was considering future administration and policy. This document drew attention to the fact that there were three main countries affecting road users—the United States, Germany and Britain. In 1965 the latest period for which figures are available in the United States round about £5,000 million was spent on roads. The amount raised in taxation from road users was—

Mr. Speaker: There is going to be a Budget, I understand, in April. The hon. Member must raise questions of taxation when we come to the Budget. He cannot do it on the Adjournment.

Mr. Taylor: I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the Financial Secretary for taking unnecessarily the time of the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Ten o'clock.